There comes a phase in an organization when you realize you need a social media manager to market your business online. The valuable opportunities available online will give a chance for your business to go viral online.
Social media marketing is not only a platform to go viral but is also an opportunity for you to connect with people. Once people have connected with your organization or product, they will definitely become your prospective leads. The ultimate aim to go for Social Media Marketing is generating traffic.
To achieve this goal you surely need to hire your Social Media Manager carefully.
Are you seriously considering hiring a social media manager?
If you have made this decision of hiring a social media manager make sure your hiring manager gets an idea about the essential questions to ask while choosing the perfect candidate. There are many owners or hiring managers who are unaware of Social Media Marketing.
Hence, it becomes a challenge for the hiring managers to choose the right guy for your company. Hiring managers are not sure about handing their brand over to a 20-year-old.
To resolve this problem, I have sorted a few questions, which you can ask before hiring a social media manager.
Questions To Ask When You Are Hiring A Entry Level / Fresher Social Media Manager
1. What social media platforms are best for your business and why?
Ask the candidate to describe your brand in three words. A candidate who wants to join your company should have researched your company and your product. Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest are diverse social media platforms. To market your brand on these platforms, the candidate must know your brand.
2. What are the two most important pillars of social marketing a company should monitor regularly?
The answer should be engagement and leads. They should always market engaging content. Have the candidates run a social media campaign or what is their knowledge on Facebook ads. Leads generated from non paid social media marketing looks way too different than the advertising.
3. What’s the most important thing a social media manager should be doing?
The most brilliant answer would know your audience. Engaging with your fans and followers on a regular basis is the essential part of SMM. Listen to your audience to understand what they want from you.
4. Can they handle social media reputation crisis online?
Ask them to define social media crisis what steps would they take to resolve this situation. Any organization ought to follow best practices in any field. This also includes Social Media Policy and this will eradicate the conflicted situation.
5. How would they allocate the budget for social media advertising?
Maximum allocation of funds will go to social media marketing depends on your company and your market, it can be a minimum of $500 per month for starters.
For an excellent ROI you should be allocating your funds in six main ways:
- Financial
- Time
- Human Resource
- Attention
- Monitoring, publishing and reporting software
- Training
6. Ask them their first goal as a Social Media Marketer.
Your candidate will say he will attract X or Y number of likes or follower. When he says this you need to ask:
- How will they build an audience of in-market fans?
- How will they engage the in-market audience?
Do not go with numbers given by the candidate a small engaged number of the audience can be a more valuable bunch of followers.
Questions you can ask an experienced Social Media Manager
1. Have you managed any social media pages or profiles in the past? How successful were they?
This question will help you know the depths of their experience at running brand accounts. Ask for concrete examples that prove why they were successful.
2. What publishing tools do you use? How do you stay organized?
As you know, there are many social media tools available. Hence, social media marketing needs planning and strategy. No one succeeds on this platform without a plan.
3. Social media content that you have worked on you can share with us or a project or task that you consider as your most significant achievement?
Listen to their story and look for creativity, enthusiasm and genuineness. See the real impact on the target audience. They should have clarity of thoughts about their success story. The success story is not necessarily about numbers it is about the effects of social media marketing on a community of people.
4. What is your experience in building and engaging community online?
Social media is about more than posting content. It is about connecting with people. This is not a significant community. You may have small connections, but small links also have a high impact depending on the geographical area.
Experience and strategy will help you build members of this community. Your candidate does not have experience in this category then ask him for his policy for building community online.
5. Have you faced a social media crisis and how will you overcome the crisis?
Social Media policies change from time to time you need to look for a careful listener and problem solver. Failures are part of any learning process you need to look for someone who has learned from the crash.
6. Give imaginative story or news release that can be used to promote your organization. In a situation where you are the follower of the page ask the candidate how will he turn you into an ambassador for your organization.
Look for creativity and the ability to turn you into a fan of the brand. He should surely have a good idea about your company, products and brands he is going to market on Social Media.
7. What are your thoughts on the current social media efforts and how can you improve it?
This will show if the candidate has done his homework. You are looking for someone who is will to give an honest opinion professionally. He should have clarity and willingness to share his ideas with appropriate reasoning.
8. What key performance Indicators would you measure for every social media platform?
Social media is more than likes and followers it’s more about increased traffic, reach saturation, brand awareness, loyalty. After all this, the ultimate goal is conversion or tangible action, i.e., leads.
9. Does member care fit in your strategy?
You need to understand that this individual will be your brand online 24/7. Therefore they need to understand the importance of responding to people online promptly. This person should be aware of the importance of reacting online and taking care of the members.
10. What according to you is the most important thing a social media manager should be doing?
Here you are not just looking for someone who publishes content but for someone who also engages with the audience. Answering to all the members, listening to your audience within the brand’s social community is the perfect answer you are looking for. You can build a relationship with the audience and your brand on this platform, therefore, audience management is the essential criteria you should be seeing in anyone.
11. How do you deal with comments online be it negative or positive comments? How will you recognize early signs of crisis and what would you do about it?
You are looking for a patient, empathetic and conflict solving abilities in a social media manager. The response to any comment is not just one individual but to future members or audience. The candidate must have the ability to recognize a situation like this and call for action with higher management. Engaging with the positive is equally important as it can be a meaningful connection.
12. How familiar are you with targeting ads to ensure money is being spent on the right people?
Here you are looking for someone who knows how to target audience on geographical or location basis, interests, connections to your profile and behavior.
13. How comfortable are you with numbers and measuring social media results?
Know if they are familiar with social media acquisitions through Google Analytics. They should know to use data tools and create reports for the team. Ask for any past work showing a sample of analysis or reports.
14. How would you track impact or ROI on social media? Where do you find the relevant metrics?
If the candidate can track it, then he can better measure it and understand the performance. Reliance on various tools like Google Analytics, tracking codes, etc. is an obvious thing to do so. Once you have collected the data, it can be analyzed. The individual should have clarity about his goals. If the SMM wants to target a particular set of audience, he can do so by using tools like tracking codes. Conduct surveys by including a questionnaire during the registration process.
15. Can you create protocols or best practices for an organizations social media management?
This is the most important trait you are looking for in an experienced candidate. The younger generation is the maximum user of social media. This generation looks for best practices and structure. You need a high-level management individual who can create a structure for your organization in the SMM field.
So hope you had some insights on how to hire a Social Media Marketer. Your social media marketer is your brand online.
Hiring the perfect candidate for your company will give you a right amount of fans online. Managing your audience most creatively and efficiently will give your brand a new position online.
What are your thoughts on the hiring procedure do let us know in the comment section below?