If you are serious about social media for your business and are looking to hire someone to help you, here is a few tips on what to look for and what to ask before you hire someone:
Experience:
There are a lot of people out there claiming to be specialists, offering social media solutions and packages that make a lot of promises. As with everything on the web, don’t believe everything you see. Many of these companies have never actually even managed a successful campaign and as nice and well intentioned as they may be, setting up a twitter and Facebook account and sending out some messages is not enough. You need to look for someone who understands social media from strategy development through execution and results. When you call to get information, ask for examples of campaigns they have run that are similar to what they would do for you. You want someone who has proven and innovative ways to generate results for you that you can measure.
Reputation Management – Controlling the conversation about your brand is vital to managing your online reputation. You need to find someone who has branding experience, and knows how to engage the social world and cultivate the image you desire.
Link Development – You want someone who knows how to make your site take center stage and are able to develop links that point targeted users in your direction to increase your credibility in the eyes of the search engines.
Blogging – Find someone who understands the importance of blogging and how to integrate that into your social media campaign. Anyone can start a blog these days so it is important you are working with someone who can show you successful blogs they have developed or managed.
Video – Your specialist needs to be familiar with video. YouTube’s video search has the second largest market share on the web. Your audience is already watching, discussing, and sharing video clips online. A good social media manager will know how to help you incorporate the power of video in your campaign.
Social media website integration - There are so many different social media platforms to choose from. Your social media team should be able to help you find the ones that are best for your campaign. You also want to find a company that can help you utilize tools that auto update facebook and twitter when your website is updated.
Measurable results: Any good company can show you results they have achieved for someone else. Ask to talk to a few clients and simply ask them, “What has your social media campaign done for your business?”
Practicing what they preach: One of the most important things to look at when choosing someone is to look at the persons background and their own social media activity. Does the person have a marketing background? What are their qualifications? Most importantly, what do their own social media accounts look like? Have they had accounts for at least a year? Do they actually use social media themselves? The best social media managers are the ones who are actually using it themselves. Stay away from the companies who have new Facebook and Twitter accounts, few followers and who don’t appear to be that immersed.
Keeping social media social: Good social media firms understand that social media should not be looked at as a marketing tool only. Social media is not a one way megaphone. They shouldn’t just be asking you for a list of things do say and pushing them out there daily. Hiring someone to send your messages takes YOU out of the equation. These campaigns don’t work, because no one will want to follow someone who is trying to promote themselves 24/7.
Try to find someone who offers training and can help teach you and your staff how to start easing into the process. Small businesses can do best if they hire someone for a short time, just to get started and to get a good base campaign started, then eventually work the process into their day to day business operations. I firmly believe that people should be managing their own conversations otherwise social media becomes nothing but 3rd party marketing.
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