How to Hire a Social Media Manager (Complete Guide)

Introduction

Social media marketing takes thought, imagination, and action. It may appear complicated, but its importance cannot be understated. According to a recent study by Statista in the USA around 91.9% of marketers prefer using social media as their marketing strategy. As a result, 78% of sales managers who engage in social selling outcompete their competitors who do not. In addition, its advantages go far beyond an increase in revenue.

When hiring a social media manager, it’s vital to make the right choice for your organization. The major role of a social media manager is to design specific plans for the development, maintenance, and monitoring of your organization’s social media strategy, which are then implemented. The person you employ will play a key role in assisting you in increasing the reputation of your organization.

There is a clear difference between those who see the value in social media and others who don’t know how to get started. And if the latter is the case, you should hire a social media manager to handle social media accounts for your business.

Now I know what you are thinking. What all things do a social media manager do? And why is it necessary to hire a social media marketer for your business? And even if we are hiring, How to Hire the perfect person to run your social media?

Don’t worry at all; we are going to cover each and every single topic in this social media manager hiring guide. Let’s solve all of your queries one by one then, but before that, let’s know.

What does a social media manager do?

Ask a social media manager, “What do you do?” and they’ll say, “A lot!”. But what exactly does “A lot!” cover?

A social media manager is responsible for managing an organization’s presence and activities across various social media platforms. Their primary responsibilities include:

• Content Creation: Developing and curating engaging content such as posts, images, videos, and stories that align with the brand’s messaging and target audience.
• Community Management: They keep an eye on what people are saying, reply to comments and messages, and help build a friendly online community.
• Social Media Strategy: Developing and implementing strategies to increase brand awareness, engagement, and community growth across different social media channels.
• Analytics and Reporting: They look at data to see how well their posts are doing (like how many people see them and interact with them) and figure out how to do even better next time.
• Influencer Outreach: Identifying and collaborating with relevant influencers or industry leaders to promote products or services and reach new audiences.
• Crisis Management:  They watch out for any trouble or bad feedback online and come up with smart ways to fix it, keeping the brand’s image nice and shiny.
• Advertising and Promotion: Planning and executing social media advertising campaigns, promotions, and contests to drive engagement and conversions.

In simple terms, social media managers are the voice of the company online, making sure everything looks good, people are happy, and the brand keeps growing on social media. They need to be creative, great at chatting with people, and smart about using social media.

Why is it Necessary to Hire a Social Media Manager?

With time, your business’s needs will change and necessitate alternative communication routes. While you may be able to handle a small account on your own at first, as your business grows, the need for different channels will increase. The more you accomplish, the less time you will have in your hand to complete it (Or do the rest of the task that you need to do). As part of an effective social media marketing strategy, a company/brand should and must maintain a long-term and constant presence on social media platforms.

This is when a social media expert, whether it’s in-house or outsourced, can be an assistance to the project. Having a better understanding of how clients perceive your organization can help experts streamline operations and boost the visibility of your business.

Is it possible to have a full-time social media staff? The increased exposure can lead to more money if done effectively and appropriately. Even so, when should you hire a social media manager? You may wish to consider hiring a Social Media Professional if you find yourself in the following situations:

• In order to increase the number of targeted visits to your website.
• In order to get the most out of social media when it comes to lead generation.
• With the purpose of raising consumer awareness of the brand.
• To allow for a wide range of dynamic interactions.
• For your brand to become known as a thought leader.
• In order to increase your sales.
• To make sure that reputation management is done well.
• In order to cut extra expenditures on marketing.

When Should you Hire a Social Media Manager?

Do you really need a social media manager or dedicated resource behind social media marketing? You can save money on hiring a social media manager if you run a small business where the activities of social media marketing can be divided among the existing staff. Answering the following questions will help you decide if you need a social media manager:

1. Is Social Media Part of your Marketing Strategy?

Following the pandemic, everyone is shifting their focus to online businesses rather than brick and mortar stores. And in order to boost your visibility in this big universe, you’ll need a better social media marketing approach. Therefore, believing that spending an hour or two on social media management will give you results is a misconception that has to be destroyed. Because people spend more than five hours per day preparing and implementing a social media strategy.

Using social media in digital marketing is quickly becoming an essential part of the campaign. In 2020, the average daily time spent on Facebook by the adults of the USA was 33 minutes, while the average daily spending time on TikTok was higher. This translates to millions of hours of yearly time spent on social media. So it’s understandable that businesses are increasingly advertising via social media platforms. Because, 50% of consumers want to discover new products through social media stories. Social media advertisements using the popular Stories format tend to do well. In response to a Story ad, 58% of consumers have clicked on to the brand’s website. Social media manager helps you integrate Facebook ad into your social media campaign in order to see business growth.

“People are on social media all day, every day — brands must go where the people are”. – Abdul Muhammad

An online presence will amplify the effectiveness of your selling process. According to 2020 research, 86% of firms reported a greater presence as a result of social media management, while 67% reported higher lead production.

Facebook and Instagram both feature an online store that allows small businesses to sell their products to the masses. As a result, having a social media professional who can boost your company’s visibility is critical. Do you agree with my assessment of this? Allow me to exemplify: even a multibillion-dollar company like Netflix employs in-house social media marketing experts to implement a better social media marketing strategy.

Also, you can look for companies, that provide cost-efficient, high-quality digital marketing services, which can benefit you in creating and maintaining a solid digital presence.

2. Is Competitors Already Thriving on Social Media?

In addition, social networking is an excellent tool for keeping track of your competition and staying up to date with industry leaders, trends, and news.

If you understand how your competitors are using social media marketing, you may develop a more effective approach for your own company’s marketing efforts. When observing the competition, keep the following points in mind:

• Is there anything that has worked well for other businesses in the past? What exactly is lacking?
• Is it possible to apply strategies that have proven successful for other firms to your own?
• Is it possible for you to assist them as well as yourself in terms of your social media tactics?

3. Are you Utilizing Every Social Media Platform?

Numerous social media platforms exist, each with its own algorithm and set of features. Instagram’s stories and reels have lately overtaken TikTok’s short videos as the most popular features on the app. The fact that Facebook (Now Metaverse) is the oldest social media network means that many people continue to utilize it. It’s not just Facebook and Twitter that you may use to connect with others, there are many other social media networks, and that’s really scary. How are you going to keep track of all of your personal and professional social media accounts at the same time?

Due to the near impossibility of doing this manually on your own, there are a variety of social media marketing experts and social automation tools/extensions/plugins like Social Auto Poster to help you to simplify the process.

4. Do you Follow Viral Social Media Trends?

On a tight budget, it can be hard to keep up with the competition in social media marketing. Last year, Facebook made a lot of changes to the organic reach of businesses on the site. There are a lot of businesses that are advertising on social media sites.

If you’ve already spent more money on social media advertising than you’ve made, or if you didn’t know about these opportunities, you might want to hire a social media marketing expert. A big part of the job of the social media consultant is to keep you up to date on any changes that could hurt your marketing efforts. People who are good at what they do use cutting-edge web design, content writing, and video to make the best use of their time and stay on top of industry trends. It can spread like wildfire this way, and viral marketing is a great way to get people to talk about your business.

5. Has your Engagement & Leads been Consistently Low?

It is one thing if your posts do not receive likes, shares, and comments; however, it is another to receive no engagement at all. But if you are unable to understand why this is happening, you will almost certainly seek professional help to figure it out. Though it’s possible that you’re posting many times a week (or even daily), your users will not pay attention if you’re not presenting them with important information. To maintain a social media presence, users are looking for value – it is not just about how often you post every day, but rather about providing them with what they want. In order to decipher the code and deliver, you will need the assistance of an expert.

In order to interact with your consumers and add value to their lives and enterprises, social networking is an extremely effective strategy. If what you’re doing isn’t assisting you in achieving your goals, you’ll require the assistance of a social media expert to help you assess and alter your approach.

Therefore if you are not engaged then you will not get enough visits to your site and if you are not getting enough visits you will not be able to generate enough leads from your social media accounts.

6. Are you Busy with Other Work?

The task of managing a company is challenging; if you’re in the initial phases and need help with everything but cannot justify paying for it, you’ll almost surely be putting in more than 40 hours each week. Additionally, extending the hours of operation for social media can be a cause of annoyance.

However, even while it is possible to prepare a large amount of your social media posts in advance with the help of social media scheduling and content curation tools, it is still essential to maintain some level of real-time posting habits, which may be difficult if you are already overburdened.

Consider bringing on a social media manager to your team, even if it’s only for a few hours each week, to help reduce some of the pressure on you. This will aid you in your efforts to cope with the workload.

What Should you Look for When Hiring a Social Media Manager?

1. Determine How They will Strategize Marketing Strategies

A savvy social media manager recognizes the need of designing and committing to a social media strategy for his or her organization. It would be best if you looking for someone who can assist you in formulating a plan for how frequently your posts will be made on a specific day, week, or month and then follow through on that plan without your involvement.

Look for a social media manager who has demonstrated success in implementing a perfect social media marketing strategy for your business. To ensure that you know what to expect from them, inquire about the methods and tools they will use. Do they know how to use social media tools and execute strategies by using them?

2. Proficient at Managing Multiple Social Media Accounts

Many social media marketing companies now maintain plenty of social media profiles for businesses, politicians, actors, and influencers. Getting to know each channel’s distinct personality, best practices, and approach to content, captioning, and customer care are all critical steps in maximizing your viewing experience.

A firm having experience with handling a lot of social media accounts requires a social media marketing manager who can deal with a variety of social networks. Social media management tools such as Buffer, Sprout Social, and Gain can help them to be more productive.

Despite the fact that it may seem self-evident, the person you choose must have a substantial number of social media followers. Ideally, they should have a good understanding of digital marketing and be familiar with the channels your company uses. Understand the culture and tone of each social media site that they use to perform their job duties.”

3. Social Media Manager Skills

Written Communication Skills

Written communication abilities are important to a candidate’s effectiveness in the profession of the social media manager. They should be capable of the following:

• Translate written material into English
• Come up with creative and eye-catching copy for your advertisements
• Only include the most important information

Critical Thinking Abilities

It is necessary that the person you are hiring is sound in critical thinking so at the time of crisis he/she can handle the situation when needed:

• Critically look at the information
• Avoid jumping to conclusions without first studying the appropriate data
• In business, you need to know how a brand’s voice can affect the people who hear it

Attention to Tiny Details

Writing a blog or ads or generating a design needs all tiny bits of detail.

• Should put punctuation properly, at proper places
• Identifying grammatical mistakes
• Should put his heart and soul into the brand’s voice.

Digital Marketing

A social media marketing manager should also be good at digital marketing.

• Knows things about SEO.
• Can do audits when required.
• Understands the importance of Google Analytics.
• Knows how to do advertising.

Design Knowledge

Knowledge of designing is the cherry on the cake for a social media manager:

• Recognize the value of visuals in advertising.
• Be able to create simple graphics on your own.

4. Adapt to the Voice of the Brand

The tone and voice of a company’s social media presence should be consistent with the brand’s overall tone and voice. If you don’t do it, clients will be confused when they visit your social media account.

When working as a professional social media marketing manager, you should be able to switch between the voices of multiple brands. In addition, they must understand how to use social media to engage with a company’s target audience in order to succeed.

5. Updated with the Trends

As the platform’s algorithm and user behavior evolve, a social media manager should make adjustments to your approach and content to keep up.

The Social media manager must also be open to emerging platforms and promptly assess what strategies should be used to guarantee achievement on those new networks.

Consider the TikTok app. It’s safe to presume that your brand should be there, given that TikTok has over 2 billion smartphone downloads worldwide as of October 2020.

An established social networking platform’s new additions are no different. It’s been over a year since reels and shops first appeared on Instagram. Was it possible for your team to develop a plan to make the most of the platform’s additional features?

Having the flexibility to return to the drawing board with their clients and revise social media campaign goals and content is an essential skill for a social media manager to have in the face of rapid change.

6. Reporting and Tracking

There are many reasons why social media metrics are important, but one is that they show that you can measure a campaign’s success and your social media strategies’ impact on your overall organization. In addition to helping you show executives the value of your work, providing regular social media statistical reports can lead to substantial changes for your social team, such as an increase in funding and better access to tools. Finally, metrics keep you informed about the overall health of your social media profile and business. You won’t realize the effects of your presence on social media until you have evidence to back it up.

Each social media network includes its own built-in analytics, which you can explore. For Facebook, they are located under the Insights tab. You navigate to Twitter Analytics on Twitter. You’ll need a business account on Instagram and Pinterest to view your data.

Now, what your social media manager should track and report?

• Engagement of your social media accounts like, share and comment
• Impression and reach of your social media account
• Voice and sentiment
• ROI: Referrals and conversions
• Customer care: Response rate and time

These are the basic reporting and analysis they should do and know. You can also ask your social media manager to generate customized reports as per your requirements. Social media managers can generate reports using existing social media platforms or use third-party tools.

Where to Find the Best Social Media Manager for your Business?

1. From Freelancing Portal

Freelancer.com

The website Freelancer.com is an excellent resource if you’re looking for an expert or freelancing social media manager to guide your team or handle your social media accounts effectively. Simply post the project you’d like to have handled, compare potential applicants, and then sit back and relax while the social media manager specialists get to work for you.

Upwork

Upwork is a fantastic resource for finding qualified individuals for temporary positions, specific projects, and hourly employment opportunities. After you’ve created an appealing job description, you’ll need to go through the applications and make any necessary changes. Decide on the most qualified social media manager candidate for the post of social media manager and transfer responsibility for the project to that person. Based on my experience, I recommend you hire a social media marketing manager from Upwork instead of any freelancing portal.

2. From Hiring Portal

Professional hiring portal sites like LinkedIn, Indeed, etc are a good resources for finding dedicated social media managers. You are asking why? First, LinkedIn is a legitimate social media platform, it is a good source for social media management professionals due to the fact that it is a true social media platform for business owners. You can post positions on LinkedIn for free or pay to have them boosted in order to improve the number of candidates who see your job postings and, eventually, hire the most qualified social media manager. Secondly, candidates are looking for jobs on such portals daily, so they are aware of it. It’s like a piece of cake to find perfect social media manager.

3. Hire Social Media Agency

Having a great staff is critical to an agency’s success. That’s how agencies are able to tap into a wealth of experience that’s specific to their industry.

The agency’s employees are often experts in a wide range of subjects. While hiring a full-time employee would cost at least $5000 or plus per month, working with a social media advertising agency can provide you with a team of specialists who specialize in specialized areas for a fraction of the price.

Some of these tasks can be performed by a freelancer or in-house staff, but only at the expense of their other obligations. One of the benefits of working with a group is that you can tap into their collective knowledge and experience. A social media agency’s team of experts works together to come up with the best possible solutions for their clients.

Naturally, the strategy becomes more difficult the more people are assigned to it. An agency with a strong organizational structure and integration checks and balances into its process is the best to work with. Because agencies may lack economies of scale, they are able to lower costs and boost efficiency across numerous client accounts, which they pass on to their clients.

Client accounts benefit from the utilization of resources and technology that are typically not included in a typical business’s marketing budget. Employees at agencies are familiar with a variety of tools and techniques. They can quickly build out a custom social media marketing stack, which an in-house employee may be unable to do.

Although an agency may work on many distinct client accounts, it is likely that they have a wealth of information that they apply to a variety of various industries. A common occurrence is that lessons learned from one customer are applied to all future efforts. While a freelance social media manager can do this, an in-house employee may not be able to do so. It is expected that agencies remain at the forefront of their respective fields as well.

They allow their employees to stay up to date on the latest industry trends, allowing them to experiment with new ideas and procedures. You can also take help from a white label marketing agency, who helps you to focus more on your business and serve your client’s under your brand name.

Should you Hire In-house or Outsource?

Using a freelancer is an excellent option if your project does not necessitate a large budget, hiring an in-house employee is ideal for companies with complex brands or who require extensive industry experience and knowledge, and hiring an agency is the de facto choice for companies whose core competency is not marketing but want someone who can raise the voice of the company with the help of marketing.

For the purpose of determining who to employ for social media, you must analyze your company’s organizational structure, objectives, and individuals in order to identify whether or not you need to make a substantial expenditure on in-house resources in an area where you could simply discover, screen, and hire a social media marketing agency that has those resources already prepared for your company.

Social Media Manager Interview Questions

Since you are familiar with the places to seek a social media manager, you should be familiar with the usual steps involved in the hiring process. Light of the fact that managing social media is a time-consuming and varied task that calls for abilities as diverse as copywriting and data research. You can evaluate the candidate’s skills and knowledge by asking them the following interview questions:

• Which social media platforms do you have hands-on experience?
• What would you do to make our brand more engaging on social media?
• How would you increase awareness of our brand?
• How do you successfully manage multiple social media accounts at once?
• What is your preferred tool for scheduling posts? Why?
• How does SEO feature in social media marketing?
• How can we improve our social media campaigns?
• What metrics do you use for monitoring data and performance?
• What are the components of a successful social media campaign?
• Which approaches and best practices would you use to generate leads?

How Much Does it Cost to Hire a Social Media Manager?

How much your social media manager will cost depends on various factors. Some of the factors that determine the cost of a social media manager include the location of your business, tools or design experience, and job requirements.

If you want to deliver a high-quality service to your customers without straining your company’s financial resources, hiring a few freelancers should be sufficient. The hourly rate for those with less than two years of experience is $20-30 per hour, while the rate for those with more than two years of experience is up to $80 per hour. As a result, the average monthly salary for a freelance social media manager is approximately $1000/month.

With an in-house social media manager, you’ll have complete control over his or her efforts and may supervise, consult, and maximize them. The annual salary of the employee will be around $40,000 after deduction of all taxes and benefits.

The cost of social media marketing for small businesses ranges from $10,000 to $40,000 each year, depending on the size of the company. Packages for social media marketing for corporations, on the other hand, often cost from $14,000 to $18,000 a month. Small business owners and start-ups are less likely to consider working with a corporate marketing firm because of this.

Hire a Social Media Manager Now!

After covering everything from why you should hire a social media manager to how to hire one, I feel you now have a better understanding of the hiring process overall. A social media manager should be hired who, in your opinion, is the best fit for your company’s social media strategy. Because so many people are already flocking to social media in quest of new opportunities and progress, you don’t want to be seen as a pawn in this game of chance.

Please make a list of your goals and what you aim to accomplish with social media, and then hire a social media manager to assist you in accomplishing them.