A Day in the Life of a Freelance Social Media Manager
Alarm goes off at 6:30am. I hit snooze until 7am when my Siberian husky can’t stand it anymore and is literally jumping on top of me, whining to get out of bed and go out. I throw on my closest robe, let the dog out, and begin making coffee (any fellow chemex peeps out there?). Pour the first cup and settle in for thirty minutes in solitude, for reading or journaling. I do my best not to open up any apps on my phone, since I know the day will be full of checking endless feeds. I ignore texts that have already come through (mom friends already buzzing around with their kids and East Coast friends that forget I live in PST). After the coffee is sufficiently sipped, I jump in the shower, throw on jeans and a tee, and walk the dog. Only when I return do I look at my email for the first time–on a perfect morning. The rest of the day is a stream of quick and timely tasks, toggling between tabs and my to-do list.
A client has emailed first thing asking to share an article that the company was just featured in. Great! Open the link, head over to Sprout while it loads, pop back over to the article to read what I need to be referring people to. Toggle back to Sprout. Write caption explaining to followers why the brand is thrilled to be featured. Need to confirm magazine’s social handle. Go back to their website, click on the twitter icon – new tab opens to LinkedIn. Go back to the publication webpage and click on the twitter icon again just to make sure I haven’t lost my mind – opens again to LinkedIn. Go to Twitter, type in company’s name to find Twitter handle – doesn’t exist. Do some research. Enter #companyssname in the post. Reread for spelling and grammar mistakes, choose time to post, schedule. Duplicate post for Facebook. Update hashtags of the company to actual tags of their Facebook account. Go back to the company’s original website, click on Facebook page to find the official Facebook handle. Tag them in Sprout. Schedule post. Duplicate post to Instagram. Update handle to company’s Instagram handle, refer them to the link in bio. Add link to the link in bio. Enter relevant hashtags, schedule to publish. Exit out of Sprout, go back to email and confirm everything has been created and scheduled to post. The process takes about 20 minutes. More coffee.
Return to planning for the day. Review calendar for scheduled meetings, scroll through client work that needs to be accomplished that day. List out tasks in order of importance and priority. Review scheduled meetings and make sure I’m prepared for each one. Start blocking time to work on each task. Begin by taking time to run through all social media accounts of each client and review inbox messages and comments for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Linkedin. Click through each client’s business page on Facebook business suite and have to reset and refresh 3 times because, #Meta. Open Instagram. Answer all comments for one client, review tagged stories and share a few tagged posts to their own stories. Exit out of this Instagram client and open the next, repeat until all client profiles have been reviewed, responded to, and updated. This takes almost one hour.
Next up: Schedule out the next week of content for each client. Open appropriate content calendar, open Sprout and tab down to correlating client, find next scheduled date, open publication button, go back to content calendar, copy content for that day, and paste into Sprout window. Assign to Instagram, add in hashtags, download the video or image for that particular post, re-upload to Sprout, choose the time of day to post because, #algorhythms, schedule post. Duplicate for Facebook. Update copy and/or links to reflect changed verbiage for this platform, schedule, repeat for Twitter and/or Linkedin/Pinterest, or Tiktok. Repeat for all clients. This takes almost an hour and half.
Move onto the next project – my own business work! Yay! My favorite…not! Open up my work folder and click open the tab to blog writing. I want to knock out two blogs today for the business that I can then upload onto the website, use to craft social media posts, and then fold into a newsletter. I write for one hour. Exit out. It’s time for my first meeting. Spend the meeting reviewing any questions or concerns or updates about content from this month’s calendar (read: last minute postings, unexpected media mentions, events, or items that weren’t covered in the initial approvals) before moving onto topics and content priorities for next month. Take notes, fill in content calendar ideas, ask for additional info and items and get off the call.
I take a small break to move, walk, pet the dog, grab a bite to eat, reply to text messages from mom friends, and get away from the computer for a minute. Check my own IG and try not to get sucked into the scroll.
Onto the next. Reviewing a website update and needs for another client. Review all previously requested changes and what information is still needed to complete. Jump on a 30-minute call with the website manager to review changes before they go live, and clarify what else is needed to finish the update and inevitable next steps. Get off Zoom and send a follow-up email outlining where we are, what has been updated, and what next steps are as well as what else is needed from the client. Send to both the website manager and client. Another hour gone.
I dive into email and respond to one or two. Review calendar for requested meetings and send over availability. Open Zoom and create a calendar invite for another meeting and hit send. Another client emails about a last minute addition to a content calendar. It’s not urgent so I bypass to tackle it tomorrow. In the middle of this, I get 3 texts (friends) and a notification from Sprout to post a reel for a client. I take 10 minutes to open the app, navigate to their page, upload the reel, add the copy, tag appropriate parties, and set publish. Wait for it to load to review. Always. Make sure links are working. Respond to text messages even though some productivity app has assured me this is not the best use of my time and I should be better focused. Slack has dinged four times. Moving on.
I open up a new Google Doc. Begin outlining content and writing copy for client newsletter. Search images and source links for each section. Once complete, upload into Constant Contact and format. Upload images, connect links. Send a test email to myself. Review all links and copy before sending the next test email to client for review. This takes about 2 hours.
I get up and pet the dog, refill my water glass, and take precisely two minutes to stare into space and wonder why this is my chosen career field. Back to business.
I check in on client social accounts. Visit Facebook for each client's page and review any new comments or messages before opening up each Instagram page and doing the same, except I also need to add a story or two here and there. This takes less time than this morning since it’s just a quick check-in. 30 minutes max. I only have one Twitter account to monitor at this point (ut oh, #twitter) which takes less than 5 minutes to review.
I’m almost done for the day. I daringly glance at my email one more time, make sure nothing urgent is there, and then move over to internet stalking a few companies I’d love to work with because, #manifesting. Finally, I track down the name and info of a marketing manager, spend way too long deliberating over verbiage in an attempt to avoid sounding creepy in this pitch, and press the send button. I open up Slack, review and respond to a few messages spread between both client and friend groups (thank goddess for friend/colleague/entrepreneur slack groups). Finally, I get up, drink some water, put my shoes on, and head out for a workout.
I come home an hour later, walk the dog, make some dinner, pour a glass of wine, and start winding down. Review my calendar to see what tomorrow is supposed to look like, watch a show (right now it’s Ted Lasso for the 12,000th time) and then head to bed and try to get about 20 minutes of reading in before I pass out.
