What
You Should know About Being A Corporate
Social Media Consultant For Nigerian Brands
 |
| Caroline Social Media Consultant |
A Social Network industry report: by Yinka Padonu featuring Caroline Wabara as Consultant
One
of the easiest ways to attract the right type of clients in internet
marketing business is to discover a niche and be the ‘go-to’ in
that niche. This is the case with Caroline Wabara.
Caroline
Wabara is a female online marketing consultant. She is also the
author of the best-selling e-book titled “Digital marketing For
Nigerian Business Success” – Her expertise in the social network
marketing niche has opened doors of opportunity for her to land jobs
from corporate clients.
She
provides social media management services to organizations and smiles
to the bank. It’s quite obvious that there are still thousands of
organizations either big or small who are yet to establish their
presence on the social media platform. The few ones there are
however, connecting with their customers in more meaningful ways
through social media and of course through mobile devices.
In
this write-up, she shares with us on how internet savvy Nigerians can
leverage on this big market to generate income.
Social
Media Marketing has become trend
Since
the advent of varying social media networks such as facebook,
Tweeter, Google
+,
linkdin, badoo, etc, on the internet, life has never remained the
same for everyone.
It’s
amazing the way social media has become a part of our lives even at
the global level. It has gone beyond connecting just with friends,
family, groups etc. In fact, the Social media fever has also caught
up with organizations at all levels.
Social
media participation has become a must for companies globally
including Nigeria. They are all looking to get publicity, capture new
leads, create awareness and communicate directly with fans.
The
Challenge and your opportunity
But
the challenge right now bothers on how these organizations can manage
their online social media profile. They do not have the luxury of
time in the world to monitor what people and especially fan page
followers are saying about their brands online. They do not have the
time to engage their
fans
with fresh posts daily. This is challenge therefore creates a gap
that needs to be filled which where a social media marketing manager
comes in.
Big
job opportunity for social media managers
As
a social media manager, your job is to become the “face or
spokesman” of the company. You do this by telling attractive
stories that gets liked, gets your fans talking about it in a
positive way throughout the social media community.
Companies
pay juicy fees to experts who can take care of
their
online community. This is one opportunity that is not fully explored.
Caroline Wabara is a life proof playing in this niche because she has
about four clients she manages their online social media page. Some
of her clients operate in the oil and gas, logistics, clothing and
electrical/electronics industry.
So
how do you qualify and build a successful career out of social media
management? Well, these steps would be a guide
8
easy steps to land a Social Media Manager Job offer
1.Have
the Communication Skills and Passion
To
start-out in this career as a social media manager, you must have a
level of competence in some basic skills. First, you must possess
very good communicating skill with people. You must be very good in
copywriting. And then have persuasive skills. You need to be a good
listener, have a sense of humour and lastly the passion to succeed in
this business.
2.
Do
online research
Caroline
asserts that she didn’t wake up one morning to start
this
business. She explained,“I stumbled on this idea while surfing on
the
Internet
and landed on two websites – www.mashable.com and www.sitepoint.com
where I read two articles on “social media marketing” and “7
after-support services that web designers can offer their clients to
generate multiple streams of income.”
Coincidentally,
I was offering just web design services to clients at the time and
nothing more, so I began to brainstorm and drummed up more services
that I could offer my clients which I have included on my website and
that was how my career as a social media manager was born. So my
advice is that you engage in doing research and reading related books
and blogs on the subject to get more clarity.” She concluded.
3.
Get
your pricing right
Once
you have acquired the knowledge and made your career choice, decide
on your pricing by calculating the cost of social media marketing and
management and know your profit at the end of the month.
According
Caroline, she has about four corporate clients she handles their
portfolio. She charges each of them as much as N30, 000 each. If you
multiply that by her four clients she will be having N120, 000 per
month. She earns that figure while having fun growing and managing
their social media community.
Truth
is, you can earn much more than this depending on your ability to
negotiate and the type of client. You can also make extra cash when
you recommend the pay-per-click advertising platform to your clients.
Caroline does this and earns her commission from it as well.
4.
Create and promote your service
Once
you are certain you have what it takes to deliver as a social media
manager, then you don’t go to sleep. You need to begin to make
‘smart’ noise about what you can offer your prospect. Caroline
said her ideal tools includes using; a keyword-rich blog that is
search-engine friendly. She has a social media presence on face book,
twitter, linkedin, foursquare, google+ and pinterest where she sells
are profile.
Make
sure you fill out your bio with the services you render and your
blog’s url. Upload a good photo in the avatar and sync your social
media profiles with each other.
Then
start connecting with others in your community by blogging, posting
and tweeting valuable information, discussing hot topics, trends and
helping others achieve their goals, this will make people begin to
see you as an expert.
At
the same time, let your friends know what you do for a living and how
to contact you. Have fun doing it.
5.
Automation tools to the rescue
Now,
you are not a machine and you got that eat and sleep, therefore you
cannot spend the whole day starring at your computer or mobile screen
and listening for conversation around your brand or trend. Therefore
you need to create a social media marketing schedule using
www.hootsuite.com
Hootsuite.com
is a free online tool; you can craft 140-character messages with
photos that you can post on all your social media boards like
facebook, twitter, digg, foursquare and linkedin for up to 30 days.
This
is a “set and forget” automated system. What’s more, you can
monitor your pages from your hootsuite dashboard for more details.
Also integrate getresponse.com’s email marketing web from your blog
and facebook page for capturing your reader’s contact info (name,
email and phone number). It would be great for future follow-ups via
email and mobile marketing.
6.
How to Source for clients
If
you have started doing the following in step 4 , then you won’t
have a problem sourcing for clients. You could also try targeting a
specific audience through the use of Facebook adverts. With as little
as $10 you could get new leads. Then try contacting and telling your
old clients, family and friends about the services you render. I got
my present clients through networking on Facebook and referrals from
family and friends. Another method is to search local business pages
on Facebook, take a critical look at their pages for any problem then
contact the company via phone or email with your proposal to help
them manage their community and increase sales. This is a method has
worked for me too.
7.
Managing Your Clients’ Community
Once
you have landed the contract, ask your clients what goals they would
like to achieve with social media marketing and then go ahead to
create their pages.
You
can make use of the automated tools like hootsuite, fan of the week
app to engage my community.Then start engaging the fans by using
creating posts such as motivational quotes, promotional messages,
Question and Answer topics, free giveaways, attractive company
photos, tips on how to utilize the company’s products and services.
These
types of posts will get your clients’ fans talking, liking,
Re-tweeting,
and sharing in no time, thereby making your client’s brand likeable
on social media. For twitter, make use of the ash tag (#) followed by
keyword.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO ATTEND THE 1 DAY COURSE ON SOCIAL MEDIA JOBS SLATED FOR SAT. JULY 7TH? Then mail me for details: padonuyinka@yahoo.com, or SMS 0809 516 2285
