usinesses all over the country are in desperate need for people to help them run their social media sites. While having a Facebook page, Twitter account or video's on YouTube makes great business sense, and allows a business to stay in touch with its customers, the big drawback is how much time it takes to run these accounts properly.

There is generally too little work to employ one person full time but too much work for the small business to do themselves. As a result, a new career path has emerged for Social Media Managers. The average earnings for these new €

Social Media Managers' is around $40,000 a year, although many earn far more than this. None of them had any experience before they started to do this flexible work from home, around their existing commitments.

Here are some frequently asked questions which might help you to see if a new career as a Social Media Manager (SMM) is for you:

So, what is an SMM?

A Social Media Manager (SMM) is simply a home worker, who is paid by a business to run their social media accounts, generally Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The SMM sets up a Facebook page, creates a Twitter account and produces a YouTube channel. Once this has been set up, the role of the business is to promote it and the role of the SMM is to reply to posts, list special offers, send messages and encourage existing followers to spread the word.

Why would a business use an SMM?

Small businesses recognise the importance of a social media presence for generating brand awareness, finding new customers, marketing to existing customers and keeping up with modern trends. However, if a Facebook or Twitter account is going to achieve those things for a business, it's important to keep up to date with your customer's (or potential customer's) comments on your account. Doing this properly would take more time than the average small business has to dedicate to it, but there is not normally enough work to employ sometime full time. The ideal solution is to outsource the work to homeworkers, often stay-at-home Mum's, students, those wanting an extra income from home.

How many businesses need an SMM?

In your local area, can you think of how many businesses there are who have a Facebook or Twitter account? Almost all of them, from pubs, restaurants, garages, hairdressers, schools, leisure centres, clothes shops, bakers, butchers, clubs - the list is endless. Most, if not all, will need help in running their accounts properly as they won't have the time to do this themselves.

But I don't have any marketing experience OR qualifications!

You don't need any! All you need is to be able to use Facebook and Twitter. If you can do that, you can work as an SMM. You will be highly in demand as there are currently around 200 businesses for every one SMM and the number of businesses is growing every day. You will be paid directly by the company, usually weekly, and the average earnings for an SMM is around $40,000 a year.

Do I have to work full time?

No, you can work any hours you like. The more you work, the more you earn, but most SMM's work part time around either existing work or family commitments, yet the average earnings are still $40,000. You can work from home, a coffee shop, on the beach - anywhere you like! As long as you can commit to providing what the client wants, you are free to work however you like.

How do I find these businesses?

You can either approach them yourself or go through a private website. By using this website, you have the peace of mind of knowing your payments will be regular and you can depend on them. Going it alone does leave you vulnerable to rouge clients. However, the biggest benefit of using this private website is that they provide a bidding site, where all paid jobs are listed. This makes finding work a piece of cake and you know you can make an immediate start to earning money at home. They also provide you with tips on how to win more bids and increase the value of each customer you take on.

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