In today’s business world, a strong online presence is absolutely critical for most companies. As such, it’s essential to hire the right team or person to manage your organization’s social media accounts. Social media managers play an integral role in keeping your company and brand relevant by developing compelling campaigns, managing an array of social channel accounts, tracking trends, and closely collaborating with various stakeholders and departments.
In short, it’s a big role that requires elevated communication skills, great attention to detail, excellent judgment, responsiveness and the ability to juggle multiple tasks. A strong social media manager must be highly strategic, adaptable and understand the unique nuances of different social media channels.
Because there’s such intense demand for highly skilled social media managers today, hiring managers must take smart steps to identify, recruit and ultimately hire the right person. Following are tips on how to hire a social media manager in a candidate-driven employment market:
HOW TO WRITE A COMPELLING SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER JOB DESCRIPTION
Depending on your company or industry, the role of a social media manager can greatly vary. For instance, you may need a candidate who can take over a well-established social media presence or someone to launch your brand on social media (or on a particular channel) from scratch. Provide that context in the job description, but also highlight core abilities and skills, both hard and soft.
Examples of skills typically required of a social media manager include familiarity with all of the prevailing social channels, working knowledge of the Adobe Creative Suite and graphic design, the ability to write clear and succinct copy, and proficiency in data analytics and performance to track and measure campaign results.
Key soft skills for a social media manager include standout communication skills, creativity and stellar organization abilities. Remember that social media managers also need initiative and resourcefulness in order to stay on top of emerging trends.
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER JOB INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Once you’ve crafted the social media manager job description, you’ll need to prepare the right set of interview questions to better help you determine whether or not an interviewee is a suitable fit for the job. A few questions you may want to ask are:
Given the opportunity and resources, what would be your dream social media campaign?
What is an example of a company that is managing its social media accounts extremely well? How so?
Based on your research of our company, what social media platform could we use more effectively?
What social media management skills are you working on strengthening at the moment?
Have you ever dealt with a social media crisis? How did you respond?
How do you stay current on the very latest social media trends?
HOW A STAFFING AGENCY CAN HELP YOU FIND SKILLED SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGERS
The task of hiring a new full-time employee or freelancer can be tedious and time-intensive, particularly in a competitive and fast-moving hiring environment. Instead of letting all the hiring responsibilities fall on you, why not partner with a specialized staffing and recruitment firm that focuses on creative and marketing roles, including social media managers? Our recruiting experts are ready to help now!
