Moving from community support to social media manager.

Hi everyone,

I am looking for advice. I work for a large tech company as a social media support specialist. Basically, I'm part of the social team dealing with customer support questions.

I have been working in this role for 7 years now. I provide support through Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Lithium forums, Instagram and a few other platforms.

At the moment I'm sort of caught between the marketing department and the support department. I have been a massive part of the growth of all of the channels I support.

I want to move in to social media marketing and management. I currently don't have the exact proof of results as I'm part of a team that have worked on the accounts I have managed so I can't take responsibility for the success of the pages.

What I want to do now, is create my own proof of results and move in to working as a freelance social media manager. What would be your recommendations of the first steps to take? I have very good experience on all of the platforms that I support.

Should I start my own social media accounts for say, a topic I like and use the growth and stats from that to show to potential clients? Sorry for the long post.