Lessons from a Digital Marketing Virtual Assistant who actually does the work:
Truth time – did you know that working as a Facebook community manager is a real, legit freelance job? VAs and digital media assistants are actually in hot demand right now for these jobs. In fact, one of my UDMA course graduates recently landed a dream position as a Facebook Community Manager – with her golden ring client – before she had even finished my course! Here’s her story of jumping right into a successful six-figure team and how she made it happen. Spoiler alert: Yes – you can make it happen, too. Stay tuned and find out how.
Meet Megan Ramus, New Digital Media Assistant and Freelance Facebook Community Manager
Megan worked in a career as an elementary classroom and art teacher. She loved working with others, but when she was suddenly faced with an unexpected cancer diagnosis, she knew things needed to change. As a mom to young kids facing complicated medical treatments, she needed to find a new path. So she shifted her career focus to find ways to work online from home.
Like many teachers who are looking for side gigs or work-from-home opportunities, she started with some online tutoring jobs. And teaching English to students across the world gave her the opportunity to keep working with young students while making a little extra money to support her family from home. But she craved more relationships and ongoing interactions like she had in her classroom and needed to find more flexible ways to earn income each month.
Enter my VA Crash Course! Megan did a little digging online and decided to take the leap and sign up for my course to become a unicorn digital marketer! And it was just a few weeks later that I shared a job lead with my students from a six-figure online business entrepreneur – Tamara Bennett of Southern A-Door-nments Decor – who needed a Facebook Community Manager for her growing membership group of DIY craft painters.
Megan decided to swallow her fears, to be a go-getter, and just go all in and apply. And soon after, she was hired and onboarding with the team just in time for a new membership launch! Now she’s working 20 hours every week as Tamara’s Facebook Community Manager while launching her own digital marketing freelance business, Virtually Megan Marie.
Here’s what you need to know about working online as a Facebook Community Manager…
Sure, even if you’ve never worked in the online space, you know Facebook. You share funny memes, tag family members in cute photos of your kids, sign up for local events, and browse new merchandise from your favorite businesses. And chances are you’ve joined a FB group (or 100!) to find people who share your favorite hobby, or to reach out to other families from your child’s preschool to plan weekend playdates.
But behind the scenes, Facebook is a huge leveraging tool for marketing online businesses. And more and more online biz owners are realizing the power of private membership groups to scale up their business and open a whole new income stream.
The problem is that growing a Facebook group is a lot of steady, ongoing work. And not just the obvious things like preventing spam or moderating inappropriate comments. For business owners, it takes constant engagement to grow and nurture relationships and build a true sense of community. If you do it well, your membership will explode and your monthly revenue growth will be exponential. But unfortunately, it can also fail really quickly if you don’t take the time to do it right. Businesses need the perfect person who has empathy and patience, and can help members through their overwhelm to find all of the value in their membership.
Enter the job of a Facebook Community Manager:
Smart online business owners know that investing in a freelance Facebook community manager that knows their stuff will be a benefit to them in the long run. Even free Facebook groups can grow a warm customer base and build that all-important KLT. And paid membership groups can nurture strong loyalty and build happy customers who want to buy more of what you have to offer, while boosting your business revenue every month.
So working as a Facebook community manager becomes a steady, reliable source of income and a regular work schedule for a Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant. It’s a lot of work but it brings a whole lot of benefits.
And the business owner will start to realize that they have members who originally came for their content and tutorials. But those members choose to stay in the long run for the community aspect. And a top notch Facebook community manager will know how to build those relationships and help make connections. They will keep their fingers on the pulse of the community and know how to connect members who have similar questions or experiences.
They can also make sure that their client can keep up with the little celebrations and trending topics inside the group. Then the client can give a shout out to a member who has a new win, or plan new content to address common pain points. And that’s how good Facebook community managers quickly become indispensable to their online business owner clients.
Megan quickly went from a brand new wanna-be digital marketer to a critical part of her client’s digital media team.
If you’ve followed my blog, you know I’ve talked about how you don’t have to have a degree or a lot of background experience to be successful in the online space. Like Megan, who had just started exploring the world of digital media marketing. But she was smart and took advantage of her broad background in teaching, and being a mom and volunteer.
She thoughtfully highlighted her existing strengths like relationship building, compassion, written communication, guiding people to new information, and organization. She knew she could use her classroom teaching skills of mediation, problem solving, and conflict resolution. Then she took the digital marketing skills she was just starting to learn from my crash course and combined them on her application to land her dream position in a whole new career.
“There are opportunities! So many things are moving online right now!”
– Megan
And now she’s working with even more new clients as a Facebook community manager and exploring ways to expand her freelance work into broader aspects of digital media marketing. Working as a FB community manager has been her foot-in-the-door opportunity to reach new potential clients and build her own thriving work-from-home business.
You need these tips if you’re interested in working as a Facebook community manager:
Megan shared some of her biggest learning outcomes from working as a Facebook community group manager in a large membership group. So take note if you are starting to think about how you could make this work for yourself:
- Be real. Don’t be afraid to be yourself and show who you are. Own it. Sure, be professional, but share your true self.
- Make your application count. If you’re going to apply for your dream job, take the time to do it right. And make sure you follow the rules! If they say no DMs, they mean it. Don’t blow it because you didn’t take the time to give them what they’ve asked for in the job post. If you’re just skipping through the application half-heartedly, it will show.
- Show off your skills. Whether you’ve been a stay-at-home mom or are retired from an office job, your existing skills can definitely translate into the online space. Don’t sell yourself short just because you’re new to the online space. You can learn the digital media marketing skills you need. Just take full advantage of your life experiences – volunteer work, family dynamics, and interpersonal skills – and let potential clients know what you’re capable of doing.
“It’s worth a shot – knock them out with what you can do!”
– Megan
Not a course. A collective for marketers already doing the work.
Our Digital Marketer’s Workgroup is a vetted peer community where marketing specialists get real business support and talk shop with people who actually get it. Applications are open now ⬇️
The Takeaway: Becoming a freelance Facebook community manager is the perfect way to get your foot in the door of the online digital media marketing world.
I hope you’re excited and eager to learn more about Megan’s journey from a career in education to a successful FB community manager. She has a lot of great advice and inspiration to share. So take a few minutes and watch her whole interview that we did together in my free Facebook group for unicorn digital marketers:
Wondering how to get started on your own path? If you’re just entering the online work-from-home space, or you’re looking for a steady, reliable freelance job where you can stretch your unicorn digital marketing skills, this is a perfect opportunity for you. There has never been a better time to open up your opportunities to work from home.
After working online for years as a VA and digital marketing assistant, I know how intimidating it can be to start something new. But don’t be afraid to step out into the online space and get your foot in the door as a FB group community manager. Because soon you could be working with new clients and creating success stories of your own.
Can’t wait to hear your story!
-Emily
Let’s connect on Instagram: @emilyreaganpr
-Emily, Digital Marketing Consultant and Implementer
Emily Reagan is a mom of four, board game pro, freelance digital marketer and Marketing Assistant Mentor who has helped over 450 go-getters, including military spouses, stay-at-home moms, and professional women learn in-demand skills and find flexible remote work as digital marketing assistants and specialists. She’s shared 3,000+ job leads with her freelancer community The Digital Marketer’s Workgroup.
Ask her any questions over on IG @emilyreaganpr
“I help smart women learn the in-demand digital marketing strategies and profitable tech skills to get hired as a unicorn digital marketing assistant.“
3 ways we can work together:
1. Join the Unicorn Digital Marketing Assistant School. My signature course on digital marketing implementation will give you the confidence and teach you HOW to do the work that’s in demand and highly marketable. This is the secret weapon to getting booked out. Start learning digital marketing services and building your digital service business right now.
2. Already doing marketing work and have a few clients? Want a stronger referral network? Apply for our Digital Marketer’s Workgroup—a tight-knit community of freelancers just like you. Inside, you’ll get behind-the-scenes support, advanced trainings, and troubleshooting that every solo marketer needs. Plus, I’ve shared over 3,000 job opportunities with this group—exclusive leads you won’t find anywhere else. If you’re ready to grow your business and connect with a supportive network, join us here!
3. Looking to hire a Digital Marketing Assistant? If you want to expand your team & grow your business, submit your job opportunity here. I’ll share it with the skilled unicorn marketing assistants inside my workgroup totally free.
Further Reading:
What Every VA Needs to Know About FB Ads
How to Survive (and Thrive) While Working at Home During a Quarantine
Facebook Posts You Can Make Without Your Client’s Help
Success Story: Finding Flexibility and a Creative Outlet as a New VA
Yes, you really can work online.
Feeling overwhelmed about how to start working from home or build your own digital marketing business? Take a deep breath — you can do this!
Start with my list of 10 in-demand tasks that online business owners are constantly asking for help with. These are the exact skills clients look for when hiring a virtual assistant. Grab your free download now, update your VA toolkit, and see where you might want to grow next as you build your freelance business with confidence and purpose.
