Last week on the podcast, I talked about the state of the economy and how that's been impacting freelancers. And spoiler alert, in case you haven't tuned into that one yet. There are some people who are struggling.
There are some changes that are happening in the industry at large, and two certain niches in particular. And so today I wanted to take some time to talk about some niches that I think. Are pretty good bets.
You know, if I were first starting, if I hadn't had a established business built up yet, these are the niches that I would think about specializing in if I were a social media manager or really any type of marketing pro or service provider. And the first one I wanna talk about is actually health and wellness. Now in last week's episode, I.
Shared health, wealth, relationships, right? Those are kind of the three things that tend to weather the storm, if you will, of any type of economy. If you have a solution to any of those problems, health, wealth, relationships, chances are people will continue to invest in you.
Now, that's not to say that they are recession proof and that they won't be impacted at all. We'll always care about those things until literally our dying days. You know, and I ran across this article right after I posted that podcast.
That was really fascinating to me. It said, gen Z and millennials are creating a recession resistant corner of the market. What it's talking about is how Gen Zers and millennials in particular.
The spending patterns are not following overall consumer changes in terms of health and wellness, meaning people are continuing to spend money on their fitness classes, on their health and wellness. You know, supplements and things like that. Even though they're pulling back, spending on other categories in other areas of, uh, of the economy.
The article says as a whole, households appear to be pulling back on discretionary spending. Retail sales rose 0. 2% in February.
Well, below the 0. 7% growth economists were expecting for the month, still spending at fitness centers, climbed 7% year over year, according to Bank of America card data, the largest increase in 19 months. They.
Quoted someone from Bank of America who said, we believe there is an ongoing generational shift toward healthy habits, which is supportive of wellness stocks. Younger demographics, including Gen Z and millennials, are increasingly prioritizing healthy ways of living and spending increased time and income on fitness, activity-based leisure and wellness focused discretionary. Items.
Now listen, I don't speak for every millennial out there, but I will tell you, you are gonna have to pry my Pilates membership out of my cold, dead hands. I mean, obviously I live in reality and if I have to, you know, pull back on those, do less, invest less, I will. But I, it's gonna be one of the last to go, you know, I started doing my own hair, for example, I used to go get blowouts.
I don't do that anymore. Part of the reason was financial. I was like, this is just kind of a waste of money.
I would give that up before Pilates because it has just made such a notable impact in my health. Not just aesthetics, but in my actual health. Same thing for groceries, food, supplements, that kind of thing.
Right? And it might be a little dystopian, I don't know, but I think people of our generation are, my generation at least, are. We're a lot more health conscious because a lot of us don't have good healthcare.
And so I'm like, well, that's gonna be more expensive if something bad happens to me. So, you know, it is what it is. So back to social media managers and freelancers, what does this mean?
I would specialize in this market and you know, that's something that is very near and dear to my heart. So it would be an easy transition for me to offer social media services to Pilates studios or to meal prep, healthy meal prep services in general. It's just smart to offer services to industries and to businesses that are.
Seeing their spending go up, right? Once they start to feel the pinch, once their customers start canceling, stop spending, they're gonna start cutting freelancers and contractors, and marketing is typically one of the first ones to go. So you want to specialize in markets that is not.
Seeing that, that same kind of tug from the economy. By the way, if you're a social media manager and you haven't yet heard about metrical, I wanna let you in on a little best practice. Using a scheduling tool is so, so important to keeping all of your clients organize, getting all their posts out on time, and metrical is my absolute favorite.
It has. Totally changed my business and they've got some amazing features. Their free plan is really extensive, but upgrading to premium unlocks advanced features that help you grow and manage your online presence.
Whether you're working on your own managing client's accounts, or running a full scale business with premium, you can get all the benefits of a free plan, plus you get. Management of multiple brands. In-depth analysis of up to 100 competitors.
Customizable linkages for any of your social media bios. Automated downloadable metric reports, team member roles and streamline client approval workflows. Seamless asset management with Google Drve and Canva integrations and so much more you can choose from starter, advanced, or enterprise level plans, and there really is one for everyone no matter this.
Stage or the strategy. So be sure to create an account and use the code Latasha that'll unlock 30 days free on any of their premium plans. I'm gonna leave a link for you down below.
Now, I wanted to talk about two other categories that I don't personally have experience in, but I thought of two actually. Social Media Management Accelerator students. Who are really crushing it.
I see them all the time on Instagram and Threads, and I think they're in interesting specialty markets that I wanted to share with you. So the first one is Beauty and Aesthetic Services. Now, I know I just said I cut out my blowouts, but that's not really so much what I'm talking about.
I think when we talk about beauty and aesthetic services, I think about like. Day spas, Botox injectables, right? These things are all becoming a lot more mainstream.
It used to be that these types of services were really only for like rich celebrities, but they've really reached the. The suburbs, the day-to-day suburbs, right? And have reached a more consumer level market.
And again, I don't have experience with these services in any way. I've never gotten any of these services and I've never, you know, worked for any of these service providers. But from what I understand, they actually are pretty.
Good profit margin services. So like the cost of, let's just say Juvederm or Botox is quite a bit lower than what they actually charge the consumer. So these, you know, aesthetic service providers are making a large margin basically, which is a good thing for their businesses.
Oh, and another thing about these services, at least a lot of them are, they are recurring. Income kind of. I actually posted a thread recently, I'm about to turn 34, and I was like, I don't know.
There's like this one tiny line on my forehead that's starting to bother me. What are the pros and cons of these types of services? And somebody brought up, like once you start, you kind of have to maintain it.
You know, this is not a service that you get done and then your wrinkles gone forever. No, it's like every six months I believe. You have to go in and top it up.
So that is something that, again, is kind of bad for a consumer and kind of pushed me back in the camp of, yeah, I'm not, I'm not gonna do that. But for the service provider, that means that, you know, they are going to probably continue to make money. Even when the economy goes down a little bit.
Now, that is not to say that people are not gonna pull back and it's not gonna see an impact, but I do think that it is a profitable niche to think about. Isn't there a whole thing about lipstick? During World War ii, apparently it was an act of defiance in Germany wearing red lipstick.
During the Second World War, almost all everyday provisions from food to clothing were rationed and in short supply around Britain. Despite shortages, makeup, lipstick especially, was not rationed and played a key role in keeping morale high across the country and on the front lines. Uh.
Okay, so it seems like people still buy lipstick even during war. There's that, like I said, somebody who does an amazing job in this industry, she's posting about it all the time on threads, and she actually took my accelerator class and she also contributed a session of her own that she. Teaches in the accelerator is Shari Cobb.
Shari Cobb is amazing and something that she does that's really cool is she does a lot of travel to her clients. So she works with these med spas and aesthetic service providers and she actually helps them create the content on site. I think this is another big differentiator that a lot of social media managers don't do.
You know, it's like. Especially when times are tough. You can say, oh, I don't do that.
I don't create content, I don't do this, I don't travel. Or you can say I do. I take that extra stop.
I go the extra mile for my clients and I am a one stop shop for aesthetics service providers, and that is what Sheri Cobb is. So I definitely recommend checking her out, giving her a follow. If you're interested in this niche, in this industry.
Like I said, she actually teaches a class in SMMA. Where she talks about her process of creating content for clients and she is like just so cool and just like welcoming. And I think that is one of her superpowers.
If I had to guess. I haven't seen her in action on a client site, but if I had to guess, she makes people feel welcome. She makes people feel seen.
She has a genuine interest in knowledge and subject matter expertise in that space, and I think that is why she is crushing it. So. Definitely a good one to potentially think about.
And then another industry that I think is always pretty much always good to think about is real estate. Now real estate goes up and down, depending on inventory, depending on. Interest rates.
And yes, depending on consumer spending, do people have money to buy or sell a house? But the cool thing about real estate is that there are kind of like two different sides to it. So sure, in a bad economy, maybe people aren't buying as much, but people are probably selling to downsize or to try to like, you know.
Earn whatever they can, you know, before things go really bad. So there's kind of like two different markets. Realtors can be servicing the seller or the buyer.
And so that's always nice to think about, like to work in industries that have these two different markets because it kind of gives you double the chances, if that makes sense. Like it gives you multiple different areas that you could target and that you could see success. And at the end of the day.
Regardless of how poor a market is, I mean, I bought my house in 2021 when everything was really scary and nobody knew what was going on. And I was very, very unsure if that was the time. And luckily, I think I was kind of a good time 'cause I got a good interest rate, but I definitely overpaid or at least.
That's what I was being told. People were saying, oh, the house, that price, the price of that house is gonna go down. It's gonna go down.
And I just still did what I had to do. They were kind of wrong. I think at least as of 2025, my home value has only gone up.
You know? So I guess I got it at a good time, but I, I might have, I could have waited, right? I could have said, oh, the economy's bad.
Now's not the time to buy, but people will always buy houses. I mean, it is just like one of those things that, you know. People will, will always invest in, spend money on and, and invest is another piece of that, right?
Wealth. We talk about health, wealth, relationships. Well, people make money off of real estate.
This isn't just something that people are doing necessarily, even just for survival, but there are investors who are seeing opportunity in some of these spaces. So doing social media for real estate. Agencies, companies, individuals, I think is always a pretty safe bet.
The other thing that I know about this industry is that it moves so quickly and therefore realtors often really struggle to do their own social media, especially when it comes to like. Long form content. There are a couple of realtors here in the Metro Detroit area that I follow that do a really good job of this, and they all have teams editing their videos, posting their videos, even giving them video ideas, and sometimes even helping them film because it is so resource heavy.
I. Real estate is hard. You know, you're on the phone all the time, you're going to showings all the time.
You don't have time to sit around and edit videos and Final Cut Pro. So I think there is a huge opportunity for those who know how to create and those who know how to be nimble. Somebody who does an amazing job of this, who was a part of my social media management accelerator course is Ben.
He has a company called. Blink slow marketing, and I actually did a whole interview with him on this podcast, so I'll link that if you wanna check it out, but I love following him as well. He shoots amazing quality video for real estate professionals in Ohio, and that's the thing that I will say about real estate.
I think it will serve you well if you are actually. In the location, in the same physical location as your clients. One of the great things about social media management is that you can kind of do it from anywhere.
Most of my clients I work with remotely, but when it comes to real estate, I think it does really serve you well to be in the same local area. Not only so you can make amazing videos like Ben makes for his clients insight in these beautiful homes, but also because you'll have that subject matter expertise. Right.
I don't really know anything about like. Tallahassee or Nashville or Boston that well, right. But I could definitely help a real estate agent in my local area or somewhere where I travel to often.
So those were a couple of industries that I would think about niching down into if I were starting out today. But I think at the end of the day, niching really is that kind of, it's like a Venn diagram, right? What you like and you're interested in, and what you have experience in.
I think when you can find that intersection of those two, that typically is the sweet spot. And then you've just gotta counter that with demand. You know, start there.
Start by listing out all the things you like, that you're interested in, that you could see yourself doing all day. Make a list of things that you have experience in. And this doesn't necessarily even have to mean like you know that you have client experience or full-time work experience.
I know one of my friends, Nina, she has a company called I do wedding marketing. And if I'm not mistaken, I believe she shared with me that she got interested in that industry after her own wedding. So we often discount our experience with an industry, with a niche, with a service, with a product when it's on the consumer side.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not. Saying, you know, you know the ins and outs of the home buying experience from the backend, from the realtor perspective because you bought a house. But I do now have a different view of real estate now that I am a homeowner and now that I purchased, you know, my own home and, and I purchased a home as a self-employed person.
Right. That does give me a unique lens where maybe I could relate better to a realtor and do their social media. Better than I could have five years ago before I was even considering buying a home.
So write down all of that experience, whether it be from the professional angle or from the consumer angle, and figure out what you could talk about all day and then kind of match it up with, okay, let's think about the economy. Let's. Think about how this is impacting this industry.
Let's see what the consumer spending on that category is like, and make you know your best. Your best guess from there. But I think these are three that I don't see being.
Terribly impacted. I'm not an economist, but these are just my, uh, you know, what I would do if I were starting out today. So anyway, I hope this one helped you, hope it was interesting, and let me know what niche you wanna work in or that you do work in.
I'd be really curious to hear about it down in the comments. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode. I will leave links to everything that I mentioned down below, and I'll see you in the next one.
Bye.
