5 Reasons You Shouldn't Become a Social Media Consultant
Besides a global pandemic and a huge financial fraud my previous employer turned out to be, 2020 was not a bad year. I finally got the courage to try something new and become a Social Media Consultant for FinTechs and Banks.
From the moment of the initial preparation, it took me five months to get my first clients. Therefore, I now feel super entitled to talk about being a social media consultant and share five warnings why you might want to reconsider becoming one.
Let's jump straight into it:
1. Cut-throat competition
The influence of social media is skyrocketing in every single realm. From being an inseparable part of our daily lives, it is now penetrating political and economic spheres. It defines perceptions and even culture in some instances.
Every public organization and every person who is aiming to do anything that involves other people, sooner or later will have to appear on social. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean everyone knows how to do it.
In the past decade, jobs associated with social media are repeatedly making it in the "most wanted" list together with software developers, graphic designers, IT security and data analysts.
Here are just a few examples:
- Social Media Analyst
- Paid Social Media Manager
- Social Media Influencer Marketing Manager
- Social Media Community Manager
- Social Media Content Manager
- Social Media Strategist
A social media consultant might not always be able to compete with each of these dedicated professionals 1 to 1, but he/she should know the scope of each area and be able to execute it on at least a satisfactory level or above.
That said, you are not just competing with other social media consultants, you are competing with every single person who works in the social media marketing area.
2. Knowing social media is barely enough
After you picked up a path of becoming a versatile social media guru, the market will respond with a lot of enthusiasm and, well, ask for more.
To complete your "social media consultant package", you should be familiar with digital marketing strategies, performance marketing, website infrastructure, attribution models, tracking, a bit of code, content creation, be data-driven, know how to present to various stakeholders and how to sell.
My daily routine often starts with a drop of anxiety of how much effort I still need to put in to become more confident in each of these areas.
3. Increasingly shorter knowledge life span
Everything that involves technology develops insanely fast.
Take FinTech as an example. Financial technology went from zero to "everything is about fintech now" in the past fifteen years. Banking in its baby form has been there since people started trading (about 4,000 years ago?), now we see one of the oldest industries in the world shapeshifting like nobody's business within a decade.
Let's multiple it by 10. Welcome to the world of social media.
TikTok took over the world within two years bringing new standards for content, engagement and advertisement on social media. And today, it is still picking, but it won't last for long. I can bet safely that in two to four years from now, there is going to be a "new Tik Tok" and new rules social media marketers will need to follow.
For social media consultants it means constant learning and keeping their eyes open to changing environment.
4. There are many unspoken rules
It was a conscious choice for me to focus on working with FinTechs.
You can significantly increase your chances to be a good social media consultant when you focus on just one industry only. The scope becomes more manageable - not only you can dive deeper into different business models, you can faster recognize and use trends.
However, unless you decide to work with companies of a certain size, you most likely have startups AND large corporates among your clients. As a social media consultant, you are an external expert and there is a huge difference between how your relationship will develop with each of them.
In order to keep yourself attractive, you need to be ready to adjust your work all the way from operational support to a managerial position.
5. Effecting the bottom line becomes even more challenging
I hope 2021 will bring some positive changes to our lives, but I doubt it will completely eliminate ROI calculation to be a primary challenge for all social media marketers.
Overall, things are definitely getting better. Most of us no longer hunt for vanity metrics, social media platforms are doing a great job in offering testing phases and better analytics, open APIs allow to do magic between sales and analytical software.
But you are a social media consultant and, as an external, you will have to figure out the status of social media for each of your clients first.
Many companies still struggle to associate social media efforts with sales and revenues. There can be a billion reasons for it and not all of them are obvious. Something as simple as a lack of necessary tech infrastructure or human resources can, in reality, be a flaw in a departments structure that doesn't let things flow.
Under any circumstances you need to prove yourself valuable to the client or leave.
If you read all the way till here, I would assume two things:
a) You are already working in social media and have something to say about the topic.
b) You ACTUALLY was thinking about becoming a social media consultant and now reconsidering your life choices.
To the second group of people, I want to say - don't.
If you truly looking for becoming a social media consultant, deep inside you already know that:
- You are on the fastest track to convert from an independant social media consultant to an actual business owner. Once you feel like your clients are happy and they want more of your time - start outsourcing. Continue delivering strong results as a team.
- The more you do, the more comfortable you will get. Of course, there is no limit how much you can learn and deliver, but if you are consistent and patient, you will eventually reach a level at which your experience will allow you to be very swift with about 80% of your projects.
- While the social media world can spin with the speed of light, your experience is your greatest value. As long as you don't resist to new things and continue learning, I promise you will find a way to be successful.
- Independence and freedom to walk away is fully yours. I was forced to leave my corporate job. That doesn't mean I didn't want to start my own journey long before that. As a social media consultant today, I would have never forgiven myself if I didn't try it.
Want to learn more about Social Media? Contact me directly on LinkedIn or reach out at [email protected]
Check out my previous articles:
- Top FinTech Influencers in 2020
- Instagram Reels VS TikTok - why you can't copy-paste a community
- What content to promote on social media?
- Social Media in Times of Crisis: Five Golden Rules
#socialmedia #socialmediaconsultant #socialmediamarketing #2021