Inside this article: read everything you need to know before hiring a social media manager. The project scope, deliverables, budgeting, and skills. Plus, get a list of sites where you can hire the perfect candidate.
Social media managers are sh** – an actual Redditor wrote.
I took no offense.
Okay, maybe a little.
However, I talked to a few business owners on Facebook last week. And I realized that hiring a social media manager is sometimes dreadful. That’s kinda true for onboarding any employee. Especially when you’re a business with special needs and unique values.
How to decide who is the right person for you?
Trust me when I say this, hiring someone is like getting married. Some employees outlive the existence of a spouse!
If you’re overwhelmed with scaling your business online, finding the right person to onboard, and wondering how much you should pay them… Then get a tall glass of water to drink. And keep reading.
Before we move forward, I will be using the terms social media manager, social media marketer, and social media copywriter/strategist interchangeably. A good specialist is all of these things and more!
Why Do You Need a Social Media Manager?
Overall, a good social media manager is well aware of targeting your audience.
- They’d do extensive research and discover voice-of-customer data [things even you didn’t know about your audience].
- They’ll study your entire funnel and fix any leaks. Because what’s the point of hiring someone when the traffic from social media isn’t going anywhere to convert. Notice that your funnel strategy might end up closing the sale on Instagram or Facebook entirely.
- Social media copywriters create magnetic messaging and branded graphics for your accounts. They know how to deal with customers professionally.
- They’ll take care of the scheduling and publishing part.
- Occasionally, they’ll do customer service and engage with your audience.
- Social media managers might do influencer outreach.
- They might use outbound sales strategies and sales scripts.
- Social media marketers might pitch leads on your behalf.
- They analyze results, report progress, and re-evaluate strategy for the upcoming months.
All in all, if you want to drive sales, build your brand, and connect with a new audience on social media, then hiring a social media manager should be your next step.
brands
There are uncountable reasons why you should hire a manager; some of them are:
1. Ensuring sustainability and consistency in your marketing strategy
To make your business sustainable, you need consistency. A social media manager spends time learning the pain points of your target audience. They research the latest business trends and craft messages that stick.
This person will create your editorial calendar, craft compelling content, and publish it consistently. It’s not just you on the other side of the screen cramming a caption when you’re waiting in line to pick up kids from school.
I mean, don’t get me wrong. That works too. But it can be overwhelming in the long run. Why not choose a stress-free way to run your business?
2. Instantly increase productivity and 3x your sales
Heck, you’re the CEO of your business.
You need to prioritize tasks that you cannot outsource. Things like client calls, coaching, launches, events, and other deliverables coming directly from you.
On the other hand, an experienced social media marketer can guide you with your ad strategy, ad budget, and engagement plans. As much as I hate maths, I’m a big fan of data. A good social media manager knows how to use data and present analytics reports.
These reports will help you save time, money, and effort.
By hiring a social media manager, you can focus on other things and leave the social media marketing to someone who knows what they are doing.
3. A business that’s in-business
Nothing is more frustrating than searching for a company on social media only to discover that their page hasn’t been updated in years.
I mean, who does that in 2022?
With companies generating 1M+ in revenue from Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok – these platforms must be a part of your marketing strategy. Period.
When you hire a social media manager, you’re basically creating a funnel to attract and retain new customers.
The probability of selling to new customers is up to 20%.
Another responsibility of a social media manager is to nurture new customers. In this phase, you’re not asking people to spend money but simply asking them to pay attention.
4. Save BUTT-LOADS of time and effort
Can you set aside 20 – 40 hours each week and do the following?
- Create and publish stellar content.
- Reply to customer queries.
- Create branded graphics to go along with your message.
- Create and run ad campaigns
- Do competitor analysis
- Learn the latest marketing trends
- Launch timely offers and holiday discounts
- Collaborate with influencers.
- Keep your audience engaged.
Time is a valuable thing. And you’re not a full-time marketer. You’re a business owner.
You can truly look after your business when you hire a social media manager.
5. Increase Customer Satisfaction and Retention Rates
Satisfying customers is a top priority. Mapping the customer journey starts with social media.
If a user found you on Instagram and engaged with your reels, getting a thoughtful reply from you is the first step to develop a customer relationship.
9 Ridiculously Useful Things to Consider Before Hiring a Social Media Manager
Your social media manager is in charge of your company’s online presence and can make or break your image. So it’s important to choose the right one.
To make this easier, I’m sharing 9 useful things to consider before hiring a social media manager.
1. Do you have a brand strategy in place?
Do you have a logo, optimized website, brand communication guide, list of ideal clients, and competitors’ list ready to share with the social media specialist? If not, then make that clear from the beginning.
What you might look for can be a social media branding expert who not only crafts your brand identity, visuals, and marketing personas and also helps you scale visibility online.
2. Choosing an agency vs. subcontractors
Hiring a social media manager directly or with the help of a third party is your choice.
Think about what your business needs: an individual or an agency.
Dealing directly with your manager will make things easier for both of you. Communication is manageable having one person on board. But, you might face issues like late responses or sudden disappearances.
When you hire a social media manager through an agency, you’ll get an expert to handle each area of your marketing strategy. But this might mean less personalization and communication for certain brands.
social media manager for hire
3. Setting realistic deliverables and expectations
Make a list of skills you want in your social media manager when you begin your hunt. It is better to hire one for the social media manager job who is an all-rounder. A skillful manager will manage things more easily. Some must-have skills in a manager are:
- Excellent communication
- Ability to understand human behavior and persuasive consumer psychology.
- Full-time availability vs. part-time.
- Will you provide some form of training or are you in need of coaching yourself.
Trusting a manager would be difficult if he does not have any previous work example.
However, experience related to your industry is not necessary. Every project has its own scope and learning curve.
I’ve worked with over 100 brands in the last 4 years and trust me, every single project had a different set of deliverables. There is a reason I tell my clients upfront that my deliverables depend on their current business and marketing needs. I will not offer you Instagram Story templates when you clearly need to optimize your profile and website first.
4. Innovative, fun, and personalized content
When you hire a social media manager to manage all of your platforms make sure they know which content performs well on each platform.
A social media manager is the first one to learn about new launches, features, and updates for each platform. Creative managers share ideas and plans that will unexpectedly blow the competition away.
5. A good data analyst = a good social media manager
I hated maths in high school.
But I love data. Data tells the success story of your business.
And as a business owner, you should consider this before hiring a social media manager. If your manager does not know how to read analytic reports and compile data, you will waste your time and energy experimenting with different things.
This is not a hit-and-miss game.
It’s more of I-tried-this-and-it-helped-us-boost-conversion-rate-by-x%.
6. Is your social media manager a problem solver?
Here are a few questions to ask the candidate before you hire them to assess their problem-solving skills:
- What will you do if our sales decrease to 20%?
- How will you deal with an unsatisfied, angry customer?
- What will you do if the competitor gives us a tough time?
- How will you manage to generate a significant number of followers with unique offers?
Sticky situations will arise.
All they need is the confidence to deal with them.
Instagram marketing
7. Master of copywriting
I was a copywriter before I launched my social media marketing business. And this single skill has helped me drive insane results for my clients.
If your manager is not a good copywriter, how can you expect content that converts? There are many copywriting courses available on the internet for free like the Conversion Copywriting 101 by Joanna Weibe.
If your manager is struggling with producing great content, ask them to take a course and learn this highly useful skill.
8. Your budget
The deliverables attached to this position depend on your business requirements and budget.
More money = more experience = Less micromanagement
Limited budget = less experience = more micromanagement
Choose your less or more, accordingly.
9. Scope of the project and deadlines
Make a list of responsibilities you think you cannot manage and want to hand over to your manager. And then ask the specialist to weigh in on it.
In certain cases, if a client has a budget of say; $750 and they’re insisting on getting 20 captions for the month.
Whereas I, the expert knows that we can drive better results if we cut down the number of captions, and introduce stories along with an hour of engagement each week, I’ll communicate that with the client.
In all regards, the strategy must be results-driven.
social media management blog
Where can I find a good social media manager to hire?
Here are some places to look for:
Look inside Facebook groups
Facebook groups are an easy and convenient way to find a perfect fit for a social media manager’s job. There are many groups that you can join and find your perfect fit. You make a post in the group and wait for a response.
You will receive a long list of applicants telling you about their expertise and experience within an hour. Choose wisely!
Post on Upwork
Upwork is another great platform to find a social media manager. The buyer makes a post with the job details and receives many proposals. Buyers can go through different applicants’ profiles, and check reviews. Then proceed for an interview.
After interviewing, you send an offer request if you find your perfect match. You can also hire a social media manager from other countries. FYI, Upwork charges a 20% service fee.
Find social media managers on Linkedin
Linkedin was established to bring entrepreneurs, clients, employees, partners, and investors on a single platform. There are many ways to hire a social media manager on LinkedIn.
The simplest way is to make a post for a social media manager’s job and ask to upload their resumes. You also create a job posting to get proposals via email. Plus, you can redirect them to your website by updating the link in your job post.
Next: schedule a meeting, take interviews, discuss responsibilities, and pay rate.
The best part is, that Linkedin does not charge any service fee and allows you to make direct contact with the candidate.
Find the right candidate on Fiverr
Fiverr is almost similar to Upwork. However, on Fiverr, you have to approach the manager yourself. It is a platform where freelancers sell their services by creating gigs. You can create a buyer’s account when you want to hire a social media manager.
After creating an account, you will be redirected to a home page where you can search for the service. On the first page, you will see some top-ranked gigs.
Go through gigs and seller’s profiles before assigning someone a social media manager’s job.
Conclusion
Remember, you are halfway responsible for setting up the expectations and deliverables through clear communication.
When I was just starting out, a little appreciation from my clients went a long way. Share resources, trainings, and guidelines on your business with the social media manager. Keep them in the loop with your long-term goals. Encourage them to ask questions.
Share your mission statement. Get on meetings with them every week in the beginning, even if it is for fifteen minutes. Offer support and brainstorm ideas together.
In a nutshell, hiring a social media manager benefits businesses of any size. You along with your entire team are responsible for a successful online presence that makes the clients say HELL YEAH!!!
P.S. Are you struggling with generating high-quality organic leads and creating the right messaging to attract prospects through social media? If yes, send me a message. We’ll dive deeper into your marketing needs and set you up for success. 🙂