How to Work from Home as a Social Media Manager

Are you wondering how to work from home as a social media manager? Social media management is an ever-growing field that incorporates a huge variety of different skills. This makes it easy to specialize in something you love to do.

Many businesses outsource the work to remote workers because it is more cost-effective. It also gets them better results than managing their social media accounts on their own. Remote social media management jobs can offer a lot of flexibility, so they can be a great way to gain some freedom during your work day.

Why are businesses using remote social media managers

Traditional marketing is expensive.

Creating print ads is time-consuming and costly. Most companies outsource this since their employees lack the skills to do it in-house.

Traditional marketing is also not often very effective unless a company has an enormous budget.

More and more businesses are moving most of their advertising budgets to social media. Maintaining social media channels can help companies reach their target audience faster. They can talk directly with their consumers, making social media an extension of their other customer service efforts.

Business owners have a lot on their plate and don’t often have the time or the specialized skills to run their own social media marketing efforts effectively so they often outsource this to remote workers.

What does a remote social media manager do?

Businesses of all sizes use social media to reach their target customers. With the average internet user spending an average of 2 and a half hours daily on social media, that provides plenty of opportunities for businesses to reach them.

While businesses can post anything they want on their social media channels (and many do), smart companies create a well-thought-out social media plan. Ideally have several KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in mind so they can help the business grow.

Social media managers wear many hats. They can do everything from creating the initial social media posting plan to implementing it.

Some of the tasks remote social media managers do include:

• Creating a social media posting plan
• Content creation
• Product photography
• Managing social media campaigns
• Graphic Design
• Research industry trends to stay ahead of the curve
• Responds to comments and DMS from followers
• Schedule social media posts
• Analyze social media analytics to determine what is working
• Evaluating competitors on social media
• Identifying potential opportunities
• Staying up to date on emerging social media platforms that may be a good fit for the business
• Building relationships with influencers and celebrities for possible partnerships

How to Get Started as a Remote Social Media Manager

If working as a social media manager from home sounds like a good fit for you, then you have a few options: go into business for yourself and get to work finding your first client, or go in-house and work remotely for a business directly.

Both of these methods have pros and cons.

Working as a contractor gives you more control over your schedule and the clients that you take but you are responsible for finding your own clients. If you don’t enjoy sales, this may not be the best route to take. You do have the potential to earn more money as a contractor, depending on the pricing structure you set up, but you also won’t have benefits.

Working in-house often comes with benefits such as insurance and paid vacation time. You may be required to work set hours, even if you are a remote employee because businesses often want you available during business hours.

Add Free Digital Marketing Certifications to your resume

You don’t necessarily need to have a specific degree to work as a social media manager but there are some very well-respected free digital marketing certifications that are worth getting. Check out this list of free digital marketing certifications and improve your chances of working as a remote social media manager.

How to Market yourself as a social media manager

If you want to convince businesses that you are capable of running their social media, you will need to have an active online presence yourself. Create professional looking social media profiles on all the major social media channels that you are interested in working with in a business setting.

Audit your existing social media profiles to be sure every image and comment fits the impression you want to give. Highlight your talents, any certifications you have received, and any work samples you have.

LinkedIn is an excellent place to highlight your professional work history but don’t overlook the importance of Instagram or TikTok as avenues for setting yourself up as an expert in the field. Use your social channels to give away quick tips and advice to businesses in order to build trust in your abilities.

Where to find Work from Home social media manager jobs

Remote social media manager jobs are fairly competitive but the good news is there are quite a few of them available so finding a remote job shouldn’t be too difficult. These jobs require knowledge of marketing, branding, and digital media in order to create effective strategies that will reach the desired target audience. They also involve creating content, engaging with users on social networks, monitoring analytics, and responding to customer service inquiries.

Indeed. I’ve found quite a few remote social media manager positions through Indeed. Set the location as “remote” or “virtual”. You can use “work from home” but I find many of the jobs that pull up under that term tend to be scams.

FlexJobs. I LOVE FlexJobs when I don’t want to spend time filtering through remote jobs that aren’t worth my time. FlexJobs only posts vetted jobs so you know they are legit and you can filter by experience level, which is very helpful if you are just getting started as a social media manager.

LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great place to look for remote social media manager jobs. You can start by networking. Networking is always the most powerful tool when you are job hunting. LinkedIn also has a great job search tool that frequently has remote social media manager positions.