1. Tell me how can social media help create value for SEO?
SEO skills are important to have when you are working with social media. Talk about your SEO strategies, the tools you use and the way you measure and analyze the results.
Google Analytics is a must here. Also, provide examples and be prepared to be tested by the recruiter.
2. Tell me how do you stay updated with the latest social trends?
If you are a social networking enthusiast, you surely follow some blogs and influencers. Let the recruiter know you are always up to date and share your favorites!
3. Explain what social media platforms do you have experience with?
Do these match the platforms on which your business is active?
4. Tell me what strategies would you use to generate leads?
This question moves from the more general and abstract into the meat of the matter. They should be able to outline 2 or 3 specific strategies that will feed leads into your sales funnel via social engagement.
5. Tell me which social media tools do you use?
Leave this question open-ended, just as it is phrased above. Your company may already have social media management software in place or you may be looking for a recommendation. If they're only familiar with free software that does nothing more than allow them to schedule posts to Facebook and Twitter, it's not a good sign. Ask them why they like or don't like different tools and which features they use most.
6. Explain me your biggest social media failure?
Everybody makes mistakes, it's not a big deal. Be completely honest about this and focus on what you learned from your bad experiences. Tell your negative stories, too. Also, mention how you corrected it and the changes you made to avoid it from happening again in the future.
7. Suppose our CEO wants you to evaluate our blog. What would you say?
Before giving you an answer, the best candidates will come back and ask you about the blog's metrics, how many leads and customers it generates, what the goals are for it, how much you're investing in it, and so on. This is also a great way to test whether they actually prepared for the interview by reading your blog.
8. Explain what are relevant metrics for tracking ROI on social media?
Engagement, brand reach, lead generation, and conversions. These are the essential measures of social media's return on investment (ROI). They should also be able to more specific in terms of Google Analytics, metrics from software they use, or metrics from a specific platform. Don't make the mistake of thinking that engagement on its own is success either. Without conversions that can be tracked back to that engagement, efforts have been unsuccessful.
9. Tell me besides Social Site how you can optimize your content?
Besides social sites, there are a number of other communities like Social Buzz Club, Viral Content Buzz, Triberr, etc. that brings together content creators and enhance their social media promotion.
10. Tell me what online communities have you managed in the past?
Here, you can mention how big the accounts you managed were, the number of followers, the strategy you followed, etc. Not enough big brand experience? No problem, you may also talk about your personal social networks but make sure they are “job seeking friendly”.
11. Tell me what marketing strategies they plan to use to generate leads?
You need to know how social media is giving you something quantifiable for your money. Social Media ROI = Number of Leads.
Social media marketing strategies that generate leads require social advertising. Each platform has its strengths but, in most cases, Facebook ads offer the biggest opportunities.
12. Explain how do you measure social return on investment (ROI)?
Use tools like the Conversion Measurement tool on Facebook and Optimized CPM. Your website will also often have analytics used to measure social media ROI. Lastly, some of the platforms themselves such as LinkedIn have their own analytics. The fundamental measures are the same as in other areas of marketing: clicks, likes, shares, purchases, change in attitude, etc.
13. Tell us have you ever had to handle a Social Media crisis? If so, could you provide an example?
Asking a social media manager to define what that ‘crisis' means to them can highlight their level of experience. If their biggest crisis consists of miss-typing a URL on a Pinterest pin and not noticing until their client asks why there's so many messages about broken links, then chances are they are vastly inexperienced. It's also insightful to ask what steps they took to resolve the crisis and how the situation was handled.
14. Tell me which social media brand strategy has inspired you lately and why?
Talk about why the strategy inspired you but, more importantly, also detail how you would love to create an original strategy of the same caliber. Explain how you would do this and implement it in the context of the job you're interviewing for.
15. Tell me have they ever had to handle a social media/online reputation crisis?
Ask them to define what that means to them and what steps they would take to resolve a situation.
If the company doesn't have a “best practices” protocol in place, it's time to get one. This would be included in your Social Media Policy and should emulate your current conflict resolution process.
16. Tell me why should we be hiring you as Social Media Manager?
I honestly don't like this question but I think it is fair to ask a social media manager this directly before hiring in order to see how they can sell themselves. This could have strong implications if your campaigns are tuned towards sales and lead generation. A social media manager should demonstrate how valuable they can be to you and what makes them different or valuable in your situation.
There are definitely more questions that could be asked when hiring a social media manager. Some will no doubt be specific to your business or industry. Hopefully, asking questions like these will help you determine the right social media manager for your business.
17. Tell me what are the first 3 things you do to start your morning as a social media manager?
You're looking to see if they have habits in place for checking notifications of brand mentions, content shares, comments and other engagements, across the business's active social platforms.
18. Tell us do you offer community management in your Social Media services?
Social engagement doesn't end when you publish your Facebook page. In fact, creating profiles is often the ‘easiest' part of the process. The execution of the community management strategies that follows is the more difficult (and more expensive) element.
It is important to know how your social media manager approaches community management and what strategies and tactics they will use to interact with your audiences. If you don't know this, then you will have no clue on how they will manage your brand online. You should have guidance and offer feedback into how your business is positioned and wants to be perceived online.
19. Explain and list out some tips to increase your reach on Facebook?
To increase your reach on Facebook you can consider following tips
☛ Improve your Facebook EdgeRank -> It determines which of your post get most visibility in your fans newsfeed
☛ Stop using third-party tools -> Don't use any third party tools for scheduling posts and posting to social media
☛ Get your likes up -> Use like-gating in which likes are given in exchange for access to content such as free download
☛ Buy some Ads -> Buying some ads can be a smart move
☛ Keep building your own Email list and Website -> Make direct contact to fans by building your own e-mail list and website.
20. Explain me what social media campaigns have you produced and/or managed?
Social media employers often stress conversation, storytelling, and engagement. Give examples of how you have conversed with clients and consumers, created interesting stories, and increased measures of engagement such as clicks, likes, reach, etc. Any campaign you mention should have these three elements at the very least. Be sure to save dashboards and results from your campaigns so you can show them off later!
21. Tell me what social media tools do you use?
Here you will need to drop some names. It's important you know how to use one or more Social Media Management platforms such as HootSuite, SproutSocial or TweetDeck. Be prepared to explain why you use them and what features you like from one or the other.
22. Explain me what are our competitors doing in Social Media?
Any social media manager who values your work opportunity will do initial research before sitting down with you. If they doesn't know what your competitors are doing, it should raise alarm bells. A social media manager should be able to give you insight into the way your competitors are using the major social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube right from the offset. This can always be researched fully later, but will give you an idea into their proactiveness and organisation.
A great community manager should be proficient in most of the social media platforms and social media management tools we've mentioned so far. He/she should have unrivaled communications skills and be likeable and organized. Employers also value a background in analytics even if those analytics were not directly related to social media.
24. Explain and list out the tips to improve your Facebook EdgeRank?
To improve your Facebook EdgeRank you have to follow the following tips
☛ Keep it short -> Posts between 100-250 characters are more likely to get more likes, comments and shares
☛ Be Visual -> Use Photos and Videos it can attract more users
☛ Ask for what you want -> Always ask for opinion or questions related to your content and how to improve it
☛ Post Daily -> 96% of your Fans aren't coming back to your page, so frequently posting is the only way to consistently reaching them
☛ Be Relevant and Not Pushy -> Post related to your service and product, but it should not address directly to your service or product
☛ Be Timely -> Find the best times for your audience and then stick with them
25. Tell me what do you see as the point of social media for businesses today?
The ideal candidate will recognize that a business can have multiple objectives for their social media efforts, and hopefully name one or two that happen to be your business's goals.
Social media managers should practice what they preach. You can ask to see their blog in action and see if they are posting regularly. Being a social media manager is about so much more than updating Facebook and Twitter. Content should be balanced, otherwise your social streams will either be giant advertisements or lists of interesting articles that they came across.
A good social media manager will be able to write effectively, allowing you to have a constant stream of interesting and engaging articles. They will also be SEO savvy and content will be optimised to have the right keywords in the right place, ultimately linking back to your business. You can ask to see what articles the social media manager has already written so you can determine whether or not their style of writing would fit your business.
If their answer is to get as many likes and shares as possible, it's time to politely end the interview. The path from likes to conversions is more like A to K than A to B, so they should be able to explain what that path looks like for different platforms. Ultimately, conversions are always the goal. They should also be able to help you define success on a strategic and tactical level in order to support your larger marketing goals.
28. Tell me do they have a blog and do they currently write content for social media channels?
Ask to see their blog in action and make a note to see if they're posting regularly.
Pro Tip: ask to see links to content they've written on the web. Many times, candidates will produce content for places like LinkedIn Pulse and Medium, without having their own personal blog.
It's crucial that your candidate has a working understanding of how content drives everything in digital marketing – SEO, content, and social media.
29. Tell me how you can use Facebook for Conversion Measurement?
For Conversion Measurement in Facebook, you can use the feature “ Conversion Pixel”. Which is nothing but a piece of code that you paste in your website, and it will measure the conversion rate of the product or service you render.
Facebook tracks conversion for adverts that happens within 1 day, 7 days and 28 days after a person click on advert and also for viewing an advert
30. Explain and list out the tips to promote your blog or content on social media sites?
You can promote your blog or content on the social media site using Co-Schedule.
☛ Social Sharing Schedule can double your traffic
☛ Use different title for same blog and schedule the blog post
☛ Schedule posting differs for different social sites, for example, you cannot promote same post to Facebook twice in one day than is on Twitter
☛ It allows you to create social messages at the time of post creation
☛ Plan out your blog post promotion with simple strategy with a simple Timeline
31. Tell me what companies do you see that are doing social media right?
This gives you insight into their overall knowledge and social style, as well as who they're paying attention to.
32. Tell us could you show us some of the clients or projects you are currently working with?
Any reputable social media manager will show you their client accounts. And be proud to do so. Some profiles will probably be doing better than others depending on each campaigns goals and strategies. If they dodge the question or cannot show you anything, then it should rightfully lead you to think they are hiding something.
Social media managers who take pride in doing quality work should want to show you their portfolio. Imagine turning up to a sales pitch without a product sample. Clients would never even think about placing an order unless they can see what they are buying.
33. Tell us what are our competitors doing on social media?
It's ok to praise the competitors here if they are genuinely doing something good. Don't go overboard and make it seem like you'd rather work for these competitors but don't be afraid to be honest if you think they have a strategy that the company you're interviewing for could learn from. Always be sure to explain why what they are doing is working (or not working). Mention specific social media campaigns if you can.
☛ Engagement. Whatever the channel, there needs to be measurable conversation around your company brand. Content is what drives social marketing success so if your content stinks, you won't see people engaging. Your candidate should be well-versed in writing and curating relevant content for your audience.
☛ Leads. Have they run a social campaign that generated leads? What's their track record with Facebook ads? Organic (non-paid-for) leads from social media look very different than the ones you see from advertising. Listening and responding timely to social media leads is crucial. Just like in real life conversations, when people talk to you, they expect a response.
35. Tell me what is Facebook EdgeRank? Why does it matters?
Facebook EdgeRank is an algorithm that Facebook uses to determine what articles should be displayed in a user's News Feed. Facebook Edge mark matters because
☛ About 96% of fans don't return to Brand's Facebook Page after initial engagement
☛ Your post is more likely to reach your fans in the newsfeed than your page
☛ About 27% of all time spent on Facebook is spent looking at news feed
