Find and Hire Social Media Experts- Interview Questions Included
The word expert denotes someone who knows everything about a topic, or at least that is what most of us envision.
Actually though, expert means someone who has a skill set from training or experience.
An interesting perspective about ‘experts’ is that the more a professional is seen as an expert, the less they feel like an expert.
A consumer considers an expert to be someone who can answer all of the questions. The truth is no one can do that, but a lot of people can come close, these are the true experts.
To be honest, in every field there is always more to learn, and that is no less true with social media.
Within the world of social media, there are Facebook experts, ad service experts, WordPress blog experts, Linkedin featured experts, Twitter growth experts, social media psychology experts and more.
To say the least it can be a difficult to make your way through this industry to find someone to help with your project or campaign.
How to Find the Social Media Expert You Need:
Identify your needs– What do you want your social media person to do, accomplish, or take care of? The more specific you can be, the better, but of course, it might not be that easy.
Make Sure They Are Active– I only recommend an expert or professional that is active on a social network. Usually Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedin, etc.
They can’t be expected to be active in many places because it takes a lot of time to be great at each one. Most professionals are active in 2-4 places, make sure you check their links.
Check Their Recommendations or Experience– It is your due diligence to make sure the person you hire has experience.
You can see most social media professionals’ profiles on Linkedin, and they should have recommendations and endorsements, these are shown on their profile as others saying these people know what they are talking about.
Talk to Them– It’s important to make sure your potential expert knows the language of the industry. Check out this social media dictionary to get an idea of the topics they should discuss.
While you are talking to them, look up the words you don’t know or understand. You can also ask them some of the following questions:
- How do you stay on top of the changes in the industry? – social media changes daily, every social media professional needs to be in tune with the changes. No matter who they are, they must have a way to stay on top of changes.
- What is your favorite social media website and why? – we all have our favorite, and for different things. For instance I like Twitter for driving traffic. Linkedin has the best B2B traffic, and Facebook is my least favorite because it is difficult to grow.
- What is your least favorite platform and why? – same as above.
- What tools do you like to use?– similar to staying on top of the changes, all experts have their favorite tools. Ask what their favorite tool is. Common answers are Radian6, Hootsuite, etc. The most important thing is to find out they are using tools and why they like them.
- How do you feel about automation? – This is a tricky question as some parts of social media can be automated and others should not be. For example- scheduling ahead is great, but having all of your blog posts automatically posted to each profile with no manual adaptions is not a good idea.
Further more, automated responses tend to cause trouble and look very unprofessional, such as the Bank of America fiasco where several employees sent automated responses, and continued to do so when they were mentioned.
- How do you handle negative comments on public profiles? – Regardless, of how you feel about responding to negative comments, your potential social media manager has an opinion, too.
Let them educate you about why they feel the way they do. For most experts you’ll learn that negative comments are a great opportunity to show your company’s dedication to being transparent in social media, and that’s a great way to gain their trust.
Where to Find Social Media Experts
Upwork is probably the best place to search, but there are over 18,000 social media people there. That’s a lot to maneuver through.
My social media expert database is growing, by the day, and I’m happy to share it with you. However, since you have specific and unique needs, I can help if you’d like to email or call me about what you are looking for.
That said, here is a list of places to find an expert. You will have to list your ad on these networks, while Upwork and Linkedin allows you to search.
- Upwork (you will get many responses, hundreds of them even)
- Linkedin Search
- Craigslist
Conclusion:
When you need an expert, it’s important to understand what you need. Once you know what you need, and can have a conversation with a few experts, you’ll be able to get an idea of who to hire, and what kind of results can be delivered. I like to help companies find the expert they need.
If you’d like to give me a call we can figure out what you need and who can help you get the results you want. Contact me here.
Related Posts
- ← Latest Facebook “Copyright Violations” Phishing Scam Targets at Social Media Managers
- What Exactly is Social Media Engagement? Why do I Need it? →
This is a very helpful post. Many don’t actually know what they want done, so they need to choose a social media specialist who can guide them. First they need to decide what networks they need to use. You could definitely help them figure that out.
Thank you Gail, you are so sweet. Glad you liked the post. Thank you for visiting.
Mary
Mary – great post and uber helpful of you to include interview questions. Great idea!
-Deborah
Thanks Deborah, I hope the questions are helpful to anyone looking for a social media person. We really need to know the answers to prove we can do more than untrained people.