Not sure what to look for when hiring a social media manager? Are you considering hiring a social media manager to take your business to the next level?

A social media manager is a multifaceted and strategic role that requires a wide range of skills and expertise.

A good social media manager should have the ability to understand the business objectives and target audience, create and execute a social media strategy, manage and grow a community, generate leads and drive sales.

What is a social media manager and what can they do for your business?

A social media manager handles a brand’s presence on social media, planning, sourcing, creating, writing and scheduling social media posts on behalf of your business.

A social media manager’s main tasks will include the following;

Managing your content calendar

A social media manager will create regular content to share on your social media accounts: a healthy mixture of original, curated, and promotional content.

Scheduling posts

Once the content is created, your social media manager will schedule your posts at optimal times for your target audience.

Engaging with followers

Engaging with your current & target audience is key to a successful social media strategy.

Your social media manager should be regularly commenting, sharing and responding to questions/mentions of your brand.

This not only gives your brand more visibility but also makes it seem more personable.

Monitoring and staying up to date with social media news, trends and best practices

Social media platforms are constantly evolving and your social media manager will be constantly monitoring trends, news and best practices.

Review analytics

A social media manager will keep a close eye on how content is performing: i.e how many click-throughs your website, the level of engagement on social media, and what content is resonating with your audience.

What to look for when hiring a social media manager.

Be realistic with your expectations

One person cannot physically be an expert in every social media platform and it’s likely that your business doesn’t need to operate on every platform. A social media strategy will highlight which to focus your efforts on.

Job descriptions on recruitment websites which require the candidate to “Manage and create content across all social platforms (Facebook, Insta, YouTube, Tik Tok, LinkedIn etc) and monitor and stay up to date with new trends” are unrealistic and are guaranteed to lead to disappointment, weak content and burn out.

As mentioned earlier each platform is constantly evolving, sometimes daily, so it’s not realistic for one person to keep up to speed with all platforms, as well as create engaging, strategy-driven content.

Look for someone with experience managing social media accounts for businesses similar to yours.

When hiring a social media manager, it’s important to look for someone who has experience managing social media accounts for businesses similar to yours. This will help ensure that they have a good understanding of your target audience and the strategies that will work best for reaching them. They should also have a good understanding of the specific platforms you want to use and be able to explain how they’ve been able to drive engagement and growth for other businesses like yours.

Look for someone who has a deep understanding of the social media platforms you want to use.

It’s important to look for a social media manager who has a deep understanding of the platforms you want to use. They should be familiar with the latest features, algorithms, and best practices for each platform and know how to use them to drive engagement and growth for your business.

Check for a track record of effectively growing an online following and engaging with an audience.

Look for someone who has experience with building and growing social media accounts and can demonstrate a history of positive results. They should be able to show examples of how they’ve been able to increase engagement, grow a following, and drive results for other businesses.

You can also ask for specific metrics such as increase in followers, engagement rate, website traffic, lead generations, sales etc. It’s also good to see if they have experience with different types of industries or niches. The more diversity in experience they have, the better.

Look for someone who has experience with creating and implementing a content calendar.

A content calendar is a tool that helps you plan and organise your social media content in advance to ensure a consistent and cohesive message across all platforms.

Having a content calendar also makes it easier to measure the performance of different types of content and optimise the posting schedule for better results.

A good social media manager should be able to create a content calendar that aligns with your business goals and objectives.

They should also be able to use analytics to measure the performance of the content and make adjustments as needed.

In addition, they should be able to create a variety of content including but not limited to text, images, videos and graphics. They should also know how to create and execute content that’s engaging, interesting, and aligned to your target audience.

So that concludes our rundown of some of the things to look for when hiring a social media manager.

Greenbank Marketing has a team of Social Media Managers with expertise in several different social media platforms,  industries and niches. Drop us an email if you’d like to find out more about how we can help you reach your target audience through social media.