Joe Matthes

Meta Ads & Social Media Manager for Ecommerce & Personal Brands

Aug 2023 - Present • 2 yrs 11 mos

In September 2023, I became self-employed at 19. By that time, I had already worked with 120+ clients and gained hands-on experience in Instagram growth, content creation, social media management, and client communication. During this phase, I worked with ecommerce brands, online shops, coaches, consultants, and personal brands. One of my clients was Apfelkiste, one of Switzerland’s largest online stores. I managed their social media presence and helped lead the content process for consistent brand content. I also built a faceless Instagram account from scratch to 60,000 followers and 12 million views within 2 months. This taught me how content, consistency, hooks, and audience behavior work in the real world. Over time, I started moving deeper into paid growth. Organic content is powerful, but it can be slow and hard to control. Meta ads, Facebook ads, and Instagram ads allow brands to test offers, reach the right people, and scale faster with clearer data. Today, I focus on doing the basics well: Clean ad setup, clear tracking, structured campaigns, ad creatives, and content that fits the brand. I keep clients updated, explain results in simple words, and focus on the next practical step instead of making big promises.

Freelance Social Media Specialist

Jan 2022 - Aug 2023 • 1 yr 7 mos

In early 2022, I found Fiverr. I had never freelanced. I had never worked with real paying clients. I created my first gig for Instagram growth and account management and started from the very bottom: lowest prices, no reviews, no track record. Within months, that changed. I served clients across industries: small businesses, coaches, consultants, online shops, and personal brands. I managed Instagram accounts, grew them organically, created content, wrote captions, built posting schedules, and handled full social media management. As reviews came in, I raised prices. As prices went up, the quality of clients improved. I learned how to communicate with clients, set expectations, handle revisions, and deliver work that made people come back. What this phase taught me: freelancing is not just delivery. It is client communication, expectation management, positioning, and knowing when to say no.

Digital Self-Education & Online Project Testing

Jan 2018 - Dec 2021 • 3 yrs 11 mos

Starting at age 14, I tested every way to build something online. Not as a business. As a way to learn and earn pocket money alongside school. WHAT I TESTED: YouTube channels, Instagram pages, Twitch livestreams, apps, websites, and online surveys. I kept building and dropping projects. Not because they failed, but because I had not found the one thing worth committing to. WHAT I ACTUALLY LEARNED: I grew multiple Instagram accounts to five-figure followings. I built a YouTube gaming channel to 3,000 subscribers in 3 months and hit monetization. I learned how to film, edit, write scripts, grow audiences, manage channels, stay consistent, and build systems around content, all without a team, without a budget, and alongside school and sports. This period gave me something no course could teach: I understood how social media platforms actually grow audiences. Not in theory. In practice. By testing, failing, and seeing what worked. By the end of 2021, I knew how content, consistency, and systems connect. I did not know yet how to turn that into a business. That came next.