Social media is essential for every business owner to engage in today. As a matter of fact, virtually everyone has at least one social media account today, regardless of age, gender, or demographic. This means that you can reach an 80-year old who’s looking for a retirement home on Facebook.
Or, you can reach that tween who’s after the latest gaming chair through Twitter, Snapchat, or Instagram. Then there’s the business professional who has the perfectly tailored LinkedIn account. As a business owner, you need to know which social media outlets your niche is on so that you can connect with them. Not sure where to begin? We’ll guide you as to how to hire social media managers to help you find your niche audience and deliver the content that connects with them.
What to look for in a social media manager
So, you’ve decided to invest in your social media strategy. That’s great. Are you going to start by posting more photos on Instagram to share product development?
Or, do you want to take to Facebook to offer promotions? Is the best approach a Twitter competition or poll? There are so many questions and you probably have no idea what the answers are. As a business owner, you have enough to worry about to ensure your business is operating smoothly. This is where your social media manager is going to step in.
Let’s look at some of the basic qualifications/criteria you should be considering when the time comes to choose a manager to hire.
Their own social media channels
Would you believe or trust a doctor without an MD or one who’s never diagnosed a patient? What if you need a lawyer, should you hire the one that’s never tried a case before? More often than not we want to hire specialists, therefore, we’ll look for those who are experienced in their field!
You’d be surprised to find how many people claim they’re social media “experts” or “gurus” only to look them up on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram, and see that they don’t even have an active account! It makes sense that if you’re hiring a social media manager to manage your social media accounts, you’d want to see their personal accounts first. If they don’t have active accounts and don’t maintain excellent content for themselves, what’s to say they’re going to do the job well for you? And there are those with active accounts, who haven’t posted in months or even years. You don’t want that happening to your social media strategy, do you?
Make sure you review their accounts, their online activity, and how engaged they are with followers. It’s a clear indication as to what you can get when they’re managing your social media accounts.
What’s their strategy?
Your new social media manager should have a clear-cut strategy in place. Are they going to
- Attack Twitter and Facebook first?
- Try to create an Instagram show of viable photos for new product launches?
- Send out a series of Snaps through Snapchat?
Or, are they going to integrate an approach that focuses on one social media channel alone? Your social media manager should have
- A social media calendar set up
- Specific dates/times
- Auto-scheduling for message delivery
- Promotions, new product release dates, etc.
The more concrete the plan they deliver, and show you during your initial interview, the more likely it is that they’ll follow through, and help grow your social media presence online.
How they’ll report & manage goal setting with you
You want a social media manager who has benchmarks in place for success. So, discuss
- When and how they’ll manager goals
- How they’ll track progress growth/decline
- What type of reports they’re going to present to you, and how frequently they’ll present them
- How they’ll show you or report to you where things went wrong if a particular strategy didn’t go as plan
Not everything works out 100% to plan. Even the best social media managers might create a campaign that’ll go bust. It’s up to you to make sure they’re reporting (at least monthly, weekly if possible), so you can see how they’re modifying goals as a strategy is working or failing. Make sure you discuss your objectives, what you want to see, and how frequently you want to see it, to avoid miscommunication.
Portfolio & success stories
Like any professionals who are stellar at the work they do, your social media manager should have a great portfolio to share. They should have success stories for clients they’ve helped and grown social media accounts for. If they do, they’re more than willing to share. Most will bring their portfolio, reviews, Yelp and Google reviews, and other information to show you during the interview. Make sure you ask to see this information. If an interviewee is not keen on sharing it or doesn’t have any information to present, keep moving.
You want to hire someone with a proven track record in helping companies. And, it’s even better if they’ve had success with companies that are in a similar niche as your company, so you can see concrete examples of what they’ll do for your business.
Do they offer month-to-month pricing?
This should not be a deal-breaker if they don’t. But, you know how social media goes in waves. One month it’s huge, the next month you have nothing going on. Furthermore, if the manager you choose isn’t meeting your goals and hitting benchmarks, you want to know you have the option to cut ties without breaking a contract. So, make sure you ask about their pricing, contracts, and if they offer month to month deals (at least initially so you can do a trial run).
There’s no single answer as to how to hire social media managers. But, you want to consider several variables when you are interviewing candidates to help you grow your social media presence as a business owner. When the time comes to eventually decide upon the candidate you’re going to hire, these are a few of the many characteristics and variables you’ll want to weigh, to help you in the decision-making process.
About the author
Hi, my name is David and I’m the founder of BfdReview.com. I have been doing affiliate marketing since I was 17 years old. I hope this article will help you reach your goals as soon as possible.
