skip to Main Content

Questions to Ask When Hiring a Social Media Consultant

Questions To Ask When Hiring A Social Media Consultant

If you don’t have the resources to handle your own social media presence, then consider hiring an intern. I have seen that some young digital natives can turn out to be effective in social media with the right attitude, despite lack of experience with social media in business! Use these simple questions to find a reliable and good social media consultant.

But how do you search for the best possible candidates? What questions do you ask and what answers will make you leap for joy or show them the door?

1. What does social media mean to you?

You’re looking for an answer beyond “talking on Twitter and Facebook” and more about forming relationships with customers and community.

2. How do you start strategizing? How are you going to manage my accounts?

Hopefully, your social media consultant will know of a content management system such as Hootsuite or BundlePost. But they should realize it’s to help push content out…so they can engage!

3. What tools are you going to use?

Clap if your social media consultant says something else in addition to the standard Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

4. What metrics have you used to measure results and effectiveness?

Look for numbers, graphs, and other reliable, hard evidence of social media success.

5. What platforms do you personally use?

Looking for a true expert? Every good social media consultant should have a blog!

6. How are you going to engage and respond to my community?

Listen carefully. The more creative this answer is, the better!

7. How will you measure ROI? What are some ways you can do that?

Keep in mind: ROI (return on investment) doesn’t have to be sales – it can be a number of retweets, sharing, number of clicks, and views. Many social media consultants will say they just focus on engagement, not the numbers. And while I am an avid supporter of relationship building, it IS measurable. You just have to decide what you want to measure, especially if you are selling a product. If they claim ROI is not necessary, smile and nod nicely, but they probably lack experience.

8. Have you created content?

They can act as ghostwriters on your blog, create stories with Storify and content, short or long, for other social media channels.

9.  Do I need to be spread out on all the channels?

This is a goodie: If they claim you need to be spread out, be wary. It’s about targeted efforts that are most effective to your goals and they should be willing and able to determine that. 

10. Help fill in this one! What do you think?

Do you have any tips we missed on how to find a good social media consultant? Comment below!

Back To Top