Social Media Management in Nigeria

Make Money with Social Media Management in Nigeria

This article will help you start up a business of social media management in Nigeria, with minimal cost. Anyone can do this as long as you’re ready to learn and improve on what you know. The social media space is littered with hundreds of thousands if not millions of pages and profiles belong to companies and organizations, but all of them face a similar problem: how to leverage the power of social media to promote their products and services.

This is where you my friend, come in. if you want to build a career around managing the social media profiles of companies and small businesses, then this article should interest you.

Why Social Media Management?

One reason stands out which calls for the need to outsource social media management, and that is the time factor. Most companies don’t have a dedicated staff who manages their social media platforms. In addition, most small business owners need help in gaining visibility on social media.

These 2 singular factors make it imperative for a third-party to manage their social media handles. If you play your game right, you should be able to make decent income monthly from managing several social media profiles for these businesses. You can do this as a student, or as a side hustle if you already have a regular job.

When Facebook took the world by storm in 1996, many Nigerian businesses joined the bandwagon. Everyone wanted to have a space on the fledgling social media platform. With time, it became fashionable to say things like “Follow us on Facebook”, or “Follow us on Twitter”, etc.

Today, Facebook has become Meta, while Twitter has metamorphosed into X. There are many popular social media platforms available to Nigerians. Among them, 3 of the most popular are

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • X (Twitter)

Out of these 3, Facebook has the most users, followed by X (Twitter). Instagram is owned by Facebook, by the way. So, it doesn’t really make much difference to separate them.

Other social media platforms to consider are Pinterest, LinkedIn, and YouTube. YouTube isn’t really a social media platform; it’s more like a video content platform.

The 3 major platforms have some things in common, but each are unique. All of them allow you to post content in form of text, videos and photos. That’s probably where their similarities end.

However, they have their peculiar limitations. Facebook doesn’t place a limit on what can be posted. X (Twitter) has a limit on the length of the text and video which can be posted, unless you’re verified. Verification on X costs about $8.

On the other hand, Instagram has no limit to what you can post, though it is most suitable for photos and videos. They each have different ways of interacting with their content. All of them also have dedicated mobile apps which can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store.

For the purpose of this guide, we will focus our attention on these major 3 platforms.

What you need to start Social Media Management in Nigeria

In order to succeed as a social media management professional in Nigeria, you need to be strategic in planning and execution. This is because if you don’t plan to succeed, you are invariably planning to fail.

Here’s a list of things to put in place for a successful career in social media management.

Training/Certification

A certificate in Social Media Management or Digital Marketing can boost your chances of getting clients early on in your career. Unless you don’t have any plans to build a long-term career around social media management, then you don’t need certification.

There a couple of places where you can learn digital marketing and social media management, including the following:

  1. Google has a free course in partnership with Coursera
  2. YouTube has lots of free lessons
  3. Hubspot has a free course on Social Media Management
  4. Udemy also has some free courses to get you started.

The right skills

You need to acquire the relevant skills in order to successfully build a career in social media management in Nigeria. Such skills include

Copywriting: you need to know how to write compelling copy which will bring results. If you don’t have this skill, you are going to struggle as a social media manager. Thankfully, today AI tools like Chat GPT can help you write such copy, so this isn’t such a big deal.

Graphic design: You need some skills in graphic design. Even if you are not an experienced and adept designer, you still need to have basic understanding of how graphic designs work. If you can’t afford a paid course, you can learn graphic design tutorials for free on YouTube.

Knowledge of Facebook/X/Instagram ads: This is key. You should understand how the advertising algorithms of these platforms work. This will help you run profitable ads and turnover good results for your clients.

Business management: You will need rudimentary business management skills as a minimum requirement. This knowledge will help you to run your business effectively and profitably.

A laptop and internet access

To effectively run your business, you need a laptop and internet access. A smartphone alone may not give you an edge, because your clients will not appreciate running their platforms from your phone. Project yourself as a serious business person. A laptop is a must.

Build a Team (optional)

You may need to build a team which will help you to run this business, with shared responsibilities. One person may handle graphic design, the other person may handle ads, while yet another person handles customer relations.

This is a smart way to get things done. However, you can still run things all by yourself, but at a point you might find yourself overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work.

Pitch to Businesses & Companies

You need to reach out to companies who may need your services. Design a professionally-sounding pitch letter/email, explaining how your business will help their business in the social media space. You can use Chat GPT or Microsoft’s Bing to craft a professional sounding pitch email.

Don’t be shy to talk about your strengths and abilities; this is your offer and you better make sure it is compelling and impressive. Send the email to a couple of businesses. Keep pitching and don’t relent. If they need your services they will surely respond in the affirmative.

Tools for Social Media Management

There are a couple of tools which you can use to automate your content posting schedule. These tools help schedule your posts in advance, so you don’t have to post often. You simply setup the schedule, upload your posts to the tool, and it takes over, posting your content on time every single day.

Here are the best free tools for social media content scheduling:

  • Later  
  • TweetDeck  
  • Canva  
  • Hootsuite  
  • Buffer  
  • Planable
  • Crowdfire

These tools are mostly free to a large extent, but you can pay for the full service if you can afford it.

How much to Charge for Social Media Management in Nigeria?

What you should charge for managing a client’s social media marketing is simply a matter of personal discretion. There is no industry flat rate which is the yardstick for everyone to follow. It’s up to you to determine how much your time is, and charge accordingly.

However, you should also take into consideration what your client should be able to pay. On the average, most social media managers charge between N30,000 – N50,000 monthly to manage a business page.

The job involves creating content such as posts, responding to user engagement such as comments and messages, and engaging in meaningful discussions on social media in order to project the brand image. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to determine how much you should charge for your services.

Concluding Thoughts

I hope this post offered some useful guidance which you might need to venture into social media management in Nigeria. If you found it useful, why not share the post using the big white button to your left?

I’ll certainly love to hear from you. Simply drop a comment in the comment box below, and let me know your challenges. I’ll be glad to help. Also check out other articles we have here. You never know, you might find more useful info. Cheers.

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