How To Start A Social Media Agency: And Make Money In 30 Days Or Less

If you’ve been considering starting a business that you can work from anywhere, getting into social media marketing makes total sense.

In this article, I will give you an overview of why I think starting a social media marketing today is a great idea and how you can make money in 30 days or less.

Let’s roll.

Social Media Management Market Size

While social media marketing is not a new business idea, the market forecast presents a bright future for anyone with online marketing skills who loves social media and is open to doing the work it takes to provide excellent service.

The global social media management market size will grow to USD 17.7 billion by 2023. Source. Market size matters when it comes to starting a new business. However, market size isn’t the only factor. You also need to consider the market needs.

Forbes reported that 60% of small business owners say they haven’t seen any return on investment from their social media efforts.

Challenges Small Business Owners Face On Social Media

If you Google the top challenges that small business owners face when it comes to their social media marketing, you’ll find this list of social media challenges:

Challenge 1: So many platforms to choose from and not knowing where to focus.

Challenge 2: Lack of resources to meet the users’ expectations.

Challenge 3: It’s difficult to measure conversions.

Challenge 4: There aren’t enough hours in a workweek.

Challenge 5: Not knowing how to set up the right goals.

According to Forbes, it takes 32 hours a month to manage a single social media platform correctly, that’s roughly 6-8 hours per week. Only 25% of small business owners spend 6-10 hours per week on social media. This isn’t because they underestimate the value; they just don’t have the time.  

What Pains A Social Media Marketer Solve?

Social media management helps users with a wide variety of tasks to develop their social channels and effectively gain visibility amongst social media users. 

A key factor to generate clients as soon as possible is your unique value proposition. All you need is to describe the pain that you’re trying to solve with your services, for a specific market.

A very simple way to craft your UVP is taking the 5 challenges listed above and turn one or two into your UVP.

Example of how to present your unique social media marketing value proposition: 

I do social media marketing for business owners who want to turn social media accounts into income-generating channels and have no time to lose.

In this example, you’re solving 2 pains for small business owners, so they will see 2 benefits:

1. Save time
2. Make more money

Now that you have your UVP, your next step is your business identity. 

To make things very simple, start with your name. Buy a couple of domain names (including yours if it’s available) in GoDaddy.com. 

Make sure your online first impression is polished. What do I mean with this?

1. You have a professional Facebook profile and a business page
2. Your Instagram is a business profile
3. Your LinkedIn BIO is updated
4. Your business is listed in Google (this is free) 

Crafting Your Elevator Speech As A New Social Media Management Agency

When you’re about to start and want to bring clients as quick as possible, it’s perfectly ok to pitch small business owners with the following message:

Hello, I’m ______. I’m about to launch my social media marketing agency. I would love to partner with small business owners who see the value in having a personalized and reliable social media specialist who can do the heavy lifting while generating conversions. Since I am starting and want to build a portfolio, the first 10 clients will have a special rate.

Share this message with everyone you know. 

Try to come up with a list of at least 100 names so you can get to those 10 new clients as soon as possible. 

Facebook Groups are a great resource to find business owners who want to collaborate with emerging marketers. In case you’re interested, I lead 2 Facebook Groups and can connect you with some opportunities. Click here to join my Marketing for Greatness Network. 

Now that you have the tools you need to prospect, let’s discuss pricing.

How Much To Charge For Social Media Marketing?

Watch out for platforms like Fiverr.com, Upwork.com, and Freelancer.com. They have freelancers who are willing to offer social media management services at very low rates. I want to give you the heads up on how to handle those business owners who think that social media management is going to cost them $5 per hour.

Stay away from business owners who want premium services paying $5 per hour rate.

Set up your minimum hourly rate (even if you don’t disclose this with your future client). If you’re not confident about charging these prices, getting certified in social media marketing will help.

Social Media Marketing Pricing Plans

Social media beginner level: $15- $20 per hour. Expect to work about 10 hours a week between your work and research. Total of hours per month: 45. Average monthly fees: $750. 

You could consider discounting your learning time, so your rate could be $600 per month. 

Social media intermediate level: $30- $50 per hour. Factor your time spent on strategy and a fee from a social media manager, beginner level, so you can get more clients. 25 hours per month at $50 is $1,250. Expect to pay your manager by tasks, about $200 per account, so you have a net of $1,000.

You could get paid $2,000-$5,000 a month if you add other projects into the mix and create social media marketing packages, with add-ons such as:

1. Copywriting for website
2. Lead pages
3. Email marketing management
4. Additional platforms such as Youtube, Pinterest, Houzz, Etsy, etc.

How To Find Social Media Marketing Clients

I hope you’re excited about the possibility of owning a social media marketing agency. Hey! Imagine if you get 5 clients at $600 that’s $3,000 per month while working from home in your PJs! 

Finding clients is all about leads! 

Memorize this: leads are the heart of your business.

Just one thing, please! A lead is not a lead until it shows an interest in your offer. When you create your list of 100’s of names, those are NOT leads. Those are suspects. Once you pitch them and they want more information, they are prospects. And once they actually accept a meeting with you, they are leads.

So, how can you find leads then?

My Top 3 Lead Generation Activities

You will be surprised here! I’ve built 4 businesses: a law firm, 2 e-commerce businesses, and a marketing firm, without ANY advertising. 

My top 3 lead generation activities have been:

1. Word of mouth
2. Organic marketing online 
3. Networking events

Why should Marketers care about WOMM?

If you could master what has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing—the one that consumers trust above all others and the one that is most likely to drive sales for your company — would you instead choose to ignore it or leave it to chance?

Seriously! Start with WOMM. Work with that list and pitch your suspects without any hesitation. If you think you need help with prospecting skills, take a few hours a week to learn how to prospect. And remember, practice makes perfect.

Partnership marketing will be your next step.

8 Effective Partnership Marketing Examples

A great way to get clients faster is through partnerships. I’m not talking about partners who share equity. I’m referring to marketing partners who can generate win-win opportunities.

Some of the most effective marketing partnerships to consider:

1. Affiliation: Known as affiliate marketing. It’s a collaborative effort where the primary brand offers a product or service and the secondary brand benefits from commissions earned per lead or sale. 

2. Content: Content partnerships can happen when brands collaborate to either a) produce content or b) share links. Link sharing means linking to the partner’s content from their own site. This provides exposure, aligns both brands together, and advances SEO.

3. Distribution: Where one partner agrees to cross-market or bundle another partner’s product or services into their own distribution channels to target the agreed customer base. This can happen by cross-marketing and/or creating bundles. 

4. Charitable: A primary brand sponsors or markets itself with a charitable organization or cause. You can promote their cause and they promote your event. This helps with brand awareness and cultural influence.

5. Joint products or services: For example, you offer social media management and our firm offers SEO. The key here is that the service is an amalgamation of both products aiming at mutual target audiences. Example: white label products.

6. Licensing: Licensing is a business arrangement in which one company gives another company permission to manufacture its product using its brand image for an agreed payment or partnership.

7. Loyalty: Loyalty program or ambassador program. A retention marketing technique that offers consumers a reward in return for increased usage. Have you heard about Instagram ambassadors? That’s what this is about!

8. Sponsorship: The marketing tactic of placing a brand alongside a particular event, displaying itself as a partner or supporter, with the objective to increase brand recognition and reputation.

Consider Niche Marketing: Facebook Marketing Agency Or Instagram Marketing Agency

There’s a good chance that you meet an established marketing agency who is serving accounts with bigger budgets and need a platform-specific service. 

You could market particular social media services such as:

1. Facebook community management and Facebook Groups admin
2. Instagram marketing, Instagram outreach 
3. Facebook chat management
4. Customer service chat
5. Appointments management
6. Instagram stories
7. Instant posts 
8. Facebook live coordinator
9. CRM integration
10. Shopping cart management

… Just to name a few.

Social Media Marketing Tools

I’ve constructed this guide to help entrepreneurs and small business owners without unlimited marketing budgets understand the erratic world of social media. 

This ultimate guide gives you my favorite social media marketing tools that you can use to boost your social media without breaking your bank account.

I’m here to simplify your game by telling you exactly which tools I use as a small business owner and strategist with over 10 years in digital marketing.  

My Go-To Social Media Scheduling Tools

I will recommend you tools that will help you plan and schedule posts a month ahead.

Scheduling Tool #1: Social Media Marketing Planner

You’ve probably seen fancy calendars and planners. I’m actually not a big fan of those scrapbooking style tools.

I rather get things done. I guess it comes with having a strict agenda and plenty of things to do.

So, for simplicity, your calendar can be just a Word Doc or Google Doc. 

Here’s the format I use to plan my social media marketing every month:

Just think about this, on a Google document, super simple.

Part 1: Theme of the month:  Growth. We want to share content that inspires, educates, and invites people to consider us for their business growth needs. 

Part 2: Target audience: small business owners in their first 3 years of their business. 

Part 3: Events of the month: Webinar week 2 and Networking event, week 4. 

Part 4: Blogs to publish during the month:  Ultimate guide of social media and Instagram tutorial

Part 5: Marketing Campaigns:  #MembersMonday #SummerSocial

Scheduling Tool #2: Facebook Creator Studio

Your Facebook Business Page comes with the option to schedule posts in the future. Now with Creator Studio, if you have multiple pages, you can post and schedule multiple pages, all from the same dashboard. 

Creator Studio integrates Instagram as well. You are able to see Instagram’s content library from Facebook. We still can’t post to Instagram from Creator Studio, but I won’t be surprised if that will come soon.

Scheduling Tool #3: Facebook Group Scheduler

Facebook Groups are a great way to grow your audience on social media. It’s by far one of my favorite social media tools. 

Scheduling Tool #4: Hootsuite | Buffer | MeetEdgar

In full transparency, I use Hootsuite for my agency.  I like how authenticates and I can just add team members and assign accounts. So, for agencies, I believe they are staying competitive. 

For solopreneurs, Hootsuite’s new pricing model might not make sense. 

You only need a scheduler like Hootsuite for your Twitter and LinkedIn, since Facebook has its own scheduler.  Buffer is a good alternative.

For those of you looking for more robust social media management tools that can offer curation and content suggestions, MeetEdgar is a great option.

Scheduling Tool #5: Later | Planoly

For those of you who are 100% Instagram marketing, you then need a social media management tool that specializes in the platform.

My research narrowed to 2 options and I chose Later.com. I liked their ability to add teams so I can get my team working on our clients while still having access to the accounts. Some of my clients use Planoly.com and are very happy too.

Later and Planoly also work on Pinterest.

Scheduling Tool #6: Sprout Social

Sprout Social does what Buffer and Hootsuite do but in a more complex way, but this platform is best for small-large agencies as their analytics feature beats Hootsuite and Buffer hands down. They provide full reporting details for their premium members, breaking down each account in bits. You can even compare your competitor’s figure and see where they are and how best to tackle them. It’s that deep.

The downside with Sprout Social is the fact that it is far more expensive than Buffer and Hootsuite put together and they have no free plan, just a 30-day trial. Sprout Social works with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Read my Ultimate Guide on Social Media Marketing Tools 2020 Edition.

Marketing For Greatness – Marketing Partnerships

We love to partner with social media managers who are looking to get more clients and want to learn best practices, strategies, and advice from marketing & sales experts. 

We provide resources, templates, scripts, training, and certification, and powerful connections to help you thrive.

Let’s make it happen!

Schedule a virtual coffee where we can discuss how to collaborate.