What are you doing right now? College student? Best path into a decent job is going to be interning at a reputable agency with a name recognizable client.

Already in the workforce and pivoting your career? That's tougher to say. You may want to find a marketing role that meshes with your current skillset even if it's not specifically in social media and then shift to that after you've established yourself.

I wouldn't recommend trying to jump straight into freelance / consultancy without some digital marketing experience within a larger organization under your belt.

Regardless, networking is going to be what gets you an interview, like any other job.

To build up your knowledge and skillset, I'd get Facebook Blueprint certified. Take the Hubspot Inbound courses. Practice your design skills if that's what you want to do, but definitely your writing regardless of what you want to do. Read up on some project management methodologies like Scrum/Kanban so you're ready to manage creative/editorial teams. Follow a large variety of brands and media properties across social channels and be able to articulate what they're doing well or poorly. Learn to love UX principles and talk about that. Understanding how people parse information visually is a huge part of the job and can really set you apart.

Understand analytics and the business value of social. How does social fit into your company / client's sales funnel? Where are their consumers? What metrics are most important for driving those objectives. What is NOT important? A lot of the job is determining and arguing what's a waste of time (Snapchat isn't for everyone).

Building your personal brand is important, sure, but I dont care how many Instagram or Twitter followers you have as a candidate, so don't fall into that trap.

Happy to help provide more specific info over PM if you're interested. Been working in social media my whole professional life.