Days 1 to 15 Set up your first social media accounts and immerse yourself in the
world of social media
Days 16 to 21 Immerse yourself in social media marketing
Days 22 to 28 Familiarize yourself with the social media marketer’s toolbox
Days 29 to 37 Choose your focus as a social media expert
Days 38 to 58 Create a marketing plan for your new social media specialty
Days 59 to 79 Build your own social media and web presence
Days 80 to 90 Approach at least 10 prospective clients
Days 1 to 15: Set up your first social media accounts and immerse yourself in the world of social media.
For these first two weeks, you should be immersing yourself in social media.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t continue reading the program beyond the first couple of sections. Just make sure to put aside some "social media junkie” time each day.
Maybe you already have a Twitter account or a Facebook page. But that’s not enough.
You need to ramp up your engagement on the sites you are already involved in, but also sign up for a lot more sites and services. You may not keep these accounts active indefinitely, but you should use these two weeks to experience as many social media services as possible.
This is important for two reasons:
1. So you truly understand what is happening on social media, who is using it and
how it works.
2. So that when you meet a prospective client and they ask if they should open a
Flickr account � for example � you can answer with authority because you have an account there yourself.
As you participate in these sites, get involved. Become engaged with other users. Don’t just watch. Don’t be a lurker. You’ll never be a true social media expert until you feel it in your gut.
Where should you sign up?
Here is a list to start with ... Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Reddit, Flickr, FriendFeed, Scribd, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Mixx, Picasa, Sphinn, Meetup, Vimeo, Foursquare, Gowalla, TwitPic, Tumblr.
Yes, some of those are mobile apps, so I hope you have a smartphone.
And yes, Tumblr is a blogging service. But once you get started with it, you’ll soon understand what makes it so different and why it is also a social media platform.
Have fun over these first two weeks!
Like I said, truly immerse yourself until the language and experience of social media feels totally natural and familiar to you.
Days 16 to 21: Immerse yourself in social media marketing.
Now that you have become a social media junkie, and your family is begging you to spend less time on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, it’s time to begin your second stage of immersion.
This time, you need to immerse yourself in social media marketing.
This means seeing what companies are doing with social media and understanding how they are using it to their advantage.
How will you find these companies?
First, look for companies within the social media channels you are already engaged with. Follow companies, large and small, on Twitter. Like companies on Facebook. Bookmark company channels on YouTube.
Myself, I check in on Mashable at least once a day just to see what’s new. You can scan all the posts, or just select the social media tab at the top, and get only the social media stories.
On Twitter I follow a number of people, companies and organizations to keep in touch with what’s new with social media, including:
@SocialMediaOrg, @BtoBSocialMedia, @BigEngineMedia, @SocialNetDaily, @socialmediamind, @AskAaronLee, @dmscott, @briansolis, @esrius
Just one cautionary note ...
There is a difference between immersing yourself and drowning.
First, throw out a wide net to find the resources that teach you the most about what’s happening in the world of social media marketing.
Then trim away the fat, and focus on the best of the best.
Days 22 to 28: Familiarize yourself with the social media marketer’s toolbox.
Assuming you have read Section 5 of the program, you know there are a ton of tools and services out there you can use to slice and dice the data generated by social media activity.
This is golden for you because it means whatever kind of social media work you are doing for a client, you can provide them with full reports on what has been happening and what has been achieved.
Some services, like HootSuite.com, actually provide you with reports which have blank spaces where you can add your own company logo and address. In other words, you can print out customized, upmtomthemminute reports carrying your logo ... and look like a total professional to your clients.
Some of these data-crunching services are free, some charge a nominal fee, and others � designed for large companies and agencies � cost a great deal.
BUT... before you can practice with these tools, you need to have some data to crunch.
That’s why it is so important that you are always active on social media for yourself and your own sites.
If you have data to crunch, you can practice with these tools � remember, they are listed in Section 5 � so that you are proficient in their use by the time you pick up your first clients.
Days 29 to 37: Choose your focus as a social media expert.
At this point, now that you truly understand how social media works and how to monitor its effects � it’s time to decide on what kind of social media specialty you are going to choose.
Here are four options to consider:
1. Make money as a social media strategist.
If you have good marketing skills, you can help companies with the big picture, work with them to identify key marketing goals, and then match those goals to the best social media sites and services.
As a strategist, you won’t be involved in the day-to-day creation or management of their social media activities. Your role will be to look at the big picture and make sure they are using the right sites and tools to optimize their results.
2. Make money as a social media writer.
As a social media writer, or copywriter, you will have three areas in which your writing skills can be applied.
First, you can write the social media content itself. This might involve writing updates for a company’s Facebook page, or tweets for its Twitter page, or even blog posts for social media-friendly blogging platforms like Tumblr.
Second, you can write promotional copy within social media. Like a welcome page on Facebook, a special offer through Foursquare, or updates for Google Places.
Third, you could specialize in writing web and blog content that is optimized for social media. This means writing content that is specifically created with a view to maximizing its shareability through social media sites.
3. Make money as a single channel expert.
You might not want to be a big-picture expert. You might want to specialize in a single social media channel, like Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr.
By focusing your attention on a single channel, you’ll quickly learn more about it than 99% of other people, and can offer a specialty service, maximizing the use of that one social media site or service.
4. Make money as a social media manager.
If you are strong in the areas of managing marketing activities, this could be the opportunity for you. Once the strategists, writers and channel experts have done their work, every social media campaign needs to be managed.
This means tracking and monitoring every aspect of a company’s social media efforts, identifying opportunities and weaknesses, and submitting daily, weekly or monthly assessments.
These are perhaps the four principal ways in which you can position your services. But they are not the only ways.
If you have a background in human resources, you could advise companies on how to recruit new employees through social media.
If you like seeking out and connecting with the true experts in various fields, you could specialize in matching companies to top social media influencers and connectors in their industries.
If you have skills in customer service, you could help companies use social media as a means to better connect with and serve their customers.
If you have a background in PR, you could become a specialist in using social media to support PR activities and campaigns.
In other words, there is a great deal of choice and flexibility when it comes to applying your social media expertise.
Just consider your own business goals as a freelancer, and then select a way to use social media to best support those goals.
Days 38 to 58: Create a marketing plan for your new social media specialty.
You may or may not need to create a formal marketing plan.
This depends on how you plan to use and profit from your social media expertise.
Sections 7, 8, 9 and 10 of the program explore four different ways to make money as a social media expert.
1. Sell your services as a freelance social media expert 2. Add social media to the list of freelance services you already offer 3. Use social media to promote your existing freelance business 4. Use social media to promote and grow your own money-making websites
Number one in particular requires that you develop a marketing plan so you can launch and promote your new business with a clear vision of the goals you would like to achieve.
Number two, less so, because it will fall within the marketing framework you already have in place for your freelance business.
And while numbers three and four don’t require any kind of marketing plan, you should at least sketch out a plan for how you are best going to leverage the power and reach of social media.
But let’s go back to number one.
If you are going to launch a new freelance business as a social media expert, you need a plan.
• First, you are going to decide how to position yourself. (See Days 29-37)
• Next, you should be writing out a clear description of your unique value proposition. (What is unique about what you offer and why your prospective clients should care.)
• Third, you should be creating a website so your prospects can find you, learn about you, and contact you. (See Days 59-79)
• Fourth, you should plan a launch strategy which will likely include the use of social media, a press release, article marketing, blogging and more. (See Days 80-90)
While you are working on this, you should have a definite launch date in mind. It is all too easy to just meander along and know that you will be launching your new business “one day soon.”
Frankly, that’s not good enough. Set yourself a deadline, and then create a schedule that ensures you are ready to launch on time.
If you are adding social media to an existing line-up of freelance services, you should go through the same process. You won’t have to create a whole new website, but you should plan to launch your new social media service with a bang. Simply to add a new page to your site and do nothing special about it would be a huge lost opportunity.
