If you’re unable to respond to inquiries or leads that are coming your way through social media channels, it’s a sign that you need to take on some help.
When your business is in its early stages, it’s often easy to manage your social media accounts on your own.
As it grows larger, it can soon become an overwhelming task to manage on top of all your other responsibilities – which is a sign to begin building your social media team.
For instance, if you’re unable to respond to inquiries or leads that are coming your way through social media channels, it’s a sign that you need to take on some help. That’s why having the expertise and talent of a social media manager is vital to help you market your business, and effectively interact with potential buyers.
I previously gave you tips on how to authentically engage with visitors to your social media page.
Here are some suggestions to help you out when it comes to hiring the best social media manager for your brand:
Determine Their Tasks
When you hire someone to manage your accounts, it’s very important that you have a clear job description outlining their specific roles and responsibilities. This is especially key for relatively new positions like social media managers, whose jobs didn’t exist before people realized social media could be used to market products.
Comeet’s post on how to write a compelling job description states that you should share their expected responsibilities “in a day-to-day format or some type of ‘day in the life’ fashion. Tell a story so your ideal candidate can see herself in the role.” This ensures that your job posting stands out from the crowd and attracts your ideal applicant.
Look at Their Portfolio
In order to judge your social media candidate, it’s best to have some solid examples of their previous work.
According to an article from Social Media Today, three key components that social media professionals should have in their portfolio are:
- Samples of work created for other brands
- Key metrics
- The ability to highlight certain accomplishments and detail how they were made.
Some key metrics to judge how effective their social media management skills include:
- engagement rate
- number of impressions
- sales (if applicable)
Having information on how these metrics changed while they handled the accounts also shows what they’re capable of doing for your own brand.
Have a Trial Run
Before you commit to a long term relationship with your social media manager, it’s a good idea to have a short-term trial run with a couple of your shortlisted candidates to see who’s the best fit. Entrepreneur suggests that one important aspect to consider is to determine if this person understands your brand’s voice, whether it’s a little quirky or more serious in tone. Having a social media presence that’s not in line with your brand voice will confuse your current following. Even if your new hire might have innovative ideas for your feed, these have to go hand in hand with your brand identity. Another thing to consider is whether or not they can consistently create on-brand copy without being repetitive. No one wants to reread Instagram captions they’ve already seen before.
One last thing to remember is that your social media profiles can actually grow your business if they’re managed well.
Keep these tips in mind when you begin building your social media team and hire your first social media manager. Your online presence will improve in no time.
