Six Things to Look For When Hiring a Social Media Manager

Whether we like it or not, social media has become virtually inescapable in everyday life. Even if you don’t have a social media presence or are inactive, chances are, you’ll still feel its effects. Heck, it got a Head of State elected in my country, after all.

Despite the dangers of excessive social media usage, it poses unique benefits too. For one, it’s one of the few platforms where small to medium business owners can get the edge over big multinationals.

Here, content is king, and the more authentic and organic your content is, the better. For many SME’s that are directly attuned to their customers, this levels the playing field greatly.

And just in case you’re not too confident about your social media skills, there are people who can take care of this for you. They’re called social media managers.

What Do Social Media Managers Do?

Just because you use social media a lot doesn’t necessarily mean that you can do your own social media marketing. Using it for business purposes is a whole lot more complicated than most people think.

Social media managers understand this on an instinctual level, and the good ones have up-to-date knowledge on the best practices and trends to help your brand stand out online. Apart from that, they typically carry out the following tasks, sometimes on a daily basis:

• Gather and analyse metrics on social media engagement and performance;
• Track followers and engagement;
• Create posting schedules;
• Boost selected posts;
• Interact with followers;
• Increase brand awareness online;
• Curate content that’s in line with your business’ branding.

Obviously, doing all that is a full-time job on its own, hence the need to delegate this role to someone better-suited.

 What Makes A Good Social Media Manager?

Let’s say you’ve finally recognized the need for a social media manager and have decided to hire one. What things should you look out for when you start vetting candidates?

1. A strong online presence.

It is imperative for a good social media manager to maintain an active online presence. Thus, you may want to do a little digging and check out your candidates’ profiles.

For instance, do they have a good number of quality followers? Does the latter include industry experts and other key influencers? Or do the candidate’s followers just appear to be a random assortment of people to make up the numbers?

The content a candidate shares with their followers would also be especially telling. Does the content provide value to their target audience? Does it come from reputable sources? If they create it themselves, does it meet your quality standards?

2. Ability to manage multiple channels.

Usually, brands need to maintain active accounts on various platforms to stay relevant and to expand their reach. It’s then critical for a prospective social media manager to be proficient at juggling multiple accounts.

This goes beyond simply copy-pasting content across platforms. Ditto for strategies. The best practices for Facebook are quite different from the same for Instagram. That goes for other platforms too.

3. Good writing skills.

There’s no getting around this. Social media managers do a lot of writing everyday. They need to come up with the right captions, craft timely and appropriate posts, and respond to customer comments and inquiries.

Also, they have to be able to do all that while employing good grammar usage, correct spelling, and most importantly, the correct voice. Otherwise, you risk alienating your audience and diminishing your brand’s credibility.

4. An analytical mind.

The best social media managers are always on the lookout for strategies to explode your brand online. They should also be able to analyze which sort of content is especially popular with your followers. On the flip side, they should have no trouble determining what needs fixing as well.

The ability to analyze your social media metrics is also key to reporting on your ROI. The most experienced social media managers, for instance, can tell how well a paid campaign is doing and whether it’s delivering the desired results at a glance.

5. Openness to collaborate.

Whether you hire in-house or remotely, your social media manager should stay up to date on what’s going on in your business. This way, they can ensure that your online presence remains on brand, regardless of what evolutions are taking place.

If your candidate has extensive experience working with project management tools like Slack, Trello, or Google Docs, that’s a good sign. It means they’re likely to have collaborated successfully before.

6. An understanding of your brand image and identity.

No matter how creative or groundbreaking a social media campaign might be, it still has to make sense for your business. Sure, there are lots of social media accounts that use a humorous and lighthearted tone, but that might not work for all companies.

A good social media manager ought to understand this, and should be able to tailor-fit their approach accordingly.

Compared to the previous criteria, this one’s harder to sound out, especially at first. What you can probably do to gauge this is to have your candidate take a look at your company’s existing profiles and have them describe what your brand is all about.

There’s no shortage of social media manager applicants online. You can find them on forums, freelance sites, and well, on the various social media platforms as well. The thing is, you’d have to be careful about your selection process so you don’t end up hiring someone who can’t do the job well.

With Remote Staff, we take care of the screening and onboarding process for our clients. Should you require a social media manager, we can put a shortlist of candidates from our pool of diverse Filipino talents based on your exact specifications. And within a relatively short time too. We’ll even handle all the payroll concerns, NDA’s, and government-mandated contributions for you once you pick one.

Request a call today by clicking here. We hope to hear from you soon.

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