100 Updated Social Media Manager Interview Questions
Q – 1 Tell me how can social media help create value for SEO?
Ans- 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.
Q – 2 Tell me how do you stay updated with the latest social trends?
Ans- 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!
Q – 3 Explain what social media platforms do you have experience with?
Ans- Do these match the platforms on which your business is active?
Q – 4 Tell me what strategies would you use to generate leads?
Ans- 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.
Q – 5 Tell me which social media tools do you use?
Ans- 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.
Q – 6 Explain me your biggest social media failure?
Ans- 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.
Q – 7 Suppose our CEO wants you to evaluate our blog. What would you say?
Ans- 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.
Q – 8 Explain what are relevant metrics for tracking ROI on social media?
Ans- 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.
Q – 9 Tell me besides Social Site how you can optimize your content?
Ans- 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.
Q – 10 Tell me what online communities have you managed in the past?
Ans- 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”.
Q – 11 Tell me what marketing strategies they plan to use to generate leads?
Ans- 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.
Q – 12 Explain how do you measure social return on investment (ROI)?
Ans- 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.
Q – 13 Tell us have you ever had to handle a Social Media crisis? If so, could you provide an example?
Ans- 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.
Q – 14 Tell me which social media brand strategy has inspired you lately and why?
Ans- 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.
Q – 15 Tell me have they ever had to handle a social media/online reputation crisis?
Ans- 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.
Q – 16 Tell me why should we be hiring you as Social Media Manager?
Ans- 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.
Q – 17 Tell me what are the first 3 things you do to start your morning as a social media manager?
Ans- 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.
Q – 18 Tell us do you offer community management in your Social Media services?
Ans- 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.
Q – 19 Explain and list out some tips to increase your reach on Facebook?
Ans- 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.
Q – 20 Explain me what social media campaigns have you produced and/or managed?
Ans- 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!
Q – 21 Tell me what social media tools do you use?
Ans- 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.
Q – 22 Explain me what are our competitors doing in Social Media?
Ans- 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.
Q – 23 Tell us what kinds of skills/qualities do you think you need to possess to be a community manager?
Ans- 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.
Q – 24 Explain and list out the tips to improve your Facebook EdgeRank?
Ans- 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
Q – 25 Tell me what do you see as the point of social media for businesses today?
Ans- 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.
Q – 26 Tell me do you have your own blog? Do you currently write content for various Social Media platforms?
Ans- 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.
Q – 27 Explain what goals should we set for each of our social media accounts, and what does success look like?
Ans- 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.
Q – 28 Tell me do they have a blog and do they currently write content for social media channels?
Ans- 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.
Q – 29 Tell me how you can use Facebook for Conversion Measurement?
Ans- 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
Q – 30 Explain and list out the tips to promote your blog or content on social media sites?
Ans- 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
Q – 31 Tell me what companies do you see that are doing social media right?
Ans- This gives you insight into their overall knowledge and social style, as well as who they’re paying attention to.
Q – 32 Tell us could you show us some of the clients or projects you are currently working with?
Ans- 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.
Q – 33 Tell us what are our competitors doing on social media?
Ans- 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.
Q – 34 Explain what are the two most important social marketing metrics a company should monitor regularly?
Ans-
☛ 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.
Q – 35 Tell me what is Facebook EdgeRank? Why does it matters?
Ans- 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
Q – 36 Tell us how do you decide which social platforms to invest the most time in?
Ans- Not all social platforms are created equally. A social media manager needs to figure out where their brand’s audience actually is and invest there. The ideal candidate’s answer should reflect that.
Q – 37 Tell me what is your understanding of EdgeRank?
Ans- Social media managers that know their trade will be able to explain about EdgeRank to you. EdgeRank is basically what runs Facebook posts. Without knowledge of this, they will have little insights into how to properly optimise Facebook campaigns. EdgeRank determines who sees what, when they see it and how often it’s seen.
It also provides a good picture into their technical knowledge and understanding of social media.
Q – 38 Tell us should we be on every social platform?
Ans- A social media manager who has done their research on your business should know your target audience. How this is answered is the key because it provides you with an instant understanding of their perceptions of your business.
If a social media manager extends your business visibility to many networks, then your marketing efforts may spread too thin and mean some of the campaigns might suffer. They should pick where your target audience is already situated and focus on maximising performance on those platforms.
Q – 39 Tell us how much SEO knowledge and experience do you have?
Ans- SEO is a desirable skill for social media marketers and marketers in general since companies always want their content to rank as high as possible on a Google search. Explain how social media helps make this happen by boosting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs…you should know what these are!), making content more share-worthy and perhaps even viral, stressing keywords, and by simply increasing the amount of content attached to a brand.
Talk about how you always factor SEO into any social media strategy and detail exactly how you did it in the past.
Q – 40 Tell us how would you assess the social media presence of a company?
Ans- To assess the social media presence of a company following parameters can be used
☛ Whether company is registered with all the social media sites Pinterest, Facebook, LinkeIn, etc
☛ Frequency of content publication on social sites
☛ Type of content- imagery based/text etc.
☛ Level of audience engagement posts enjoy
☛ Is the description in social media aligned with the company’s goals
☛ Is the company’s information on social sites are updated and current
☛ Does your social media profiles include relevant links to your website, blog and other social media presence
☛ Does Company follows the right metrics to get more attention from social sites,
☛ Company’s employees from all other division or franchises have created their own profile on social networks
☛ Is company’s brand consistent on each network like- same logo, company description, etc.
☛ Whether a presence on social sites are used only for pushing out messages or used as a platform to create conversation
Q – 41 Explain me which social media channels do you recommend for our business?
Ans- Make sure you study the business you’re interviewing with, think about their target audience, industry they work in and possible strategies they could follow and then compare it to what each social network offers. You’ll have no problem to tackle this question and other similar ones if you have done your homework and informed yourself about the business/brand beforehand.
Q – 42 Social Media Industry Manager Interview Questions:
Ans-
☛ What is Web 2.0?
☛ What does Web 3.0 look like?
☛ What’s the “next big thing?”
☛ What is the difference between social media and social networking?
☛ What do you think of social media consultants?
☛ What’s the scariest part of social media?
☛ What’s the most exciting part of social media?
☛ What social media blogs do you read? What research do you follow?
☛ Who’s your favorite social media expert?
Q – 43 Company based Social Media Manager Interview Questions:
Ans-
☛ For our business, would Twitter or Facebook be more effective?
☛ Why would we want to continue using MySpace?
☛ Why should we use social media?
☛ What would be the first thing you would do if hired for this position? What would your goal be for the first month? The first year?
☛ Would you use Facebook Like or Facebook Recommend on our site?
☛ What social sites should our company have a presence on?
☛ How would you integrate social media into our site? What buttons or widgets would you recommend?
☛ What percentage of our referral traffic would you think our site should get from social media sites?
☛ Give our company a grade on our current social media efforts.
☛ How would a social check in site benefit our business?
☛ What tabs should we have on our company Facebook page? Which one should be default?
☛ How do you define social media reach? What is the current social media reach our of our company?
☛ What are 5 things you would recommend to us to do immediately in the social space?
Q – 44 Technical Social Media Manager Interview Questions:
Ans-
☛ Explain the difference between Facebook Like and Sharing on Facebook.
☛ If you’re planning a vacation and will be out of touch and not able to get online for a week, what tools would you use to ensure social media updates are being posted?
☛ Write three headlines for news stories that you think will have tremendous success on social media. What makes the headline successful? Write a headline for a successful article about our company.
☛ How often should we update Twitter?
☛ How do you handle criticism of a company online?
☛ What would you do if someone started a parody account poking fun at our company?
☛ What is your policy for moderating comments?
☛ Would you pay a blogger to write favorably about our company?
☛ How would you show unique content only to fans on our Facebook page?
☛ Who in our organization should be blogging on behalf of the company?
☛ What is a “sneezer”?
☛ How would you perform competitive analysis in the social space?
☛ What do think about software applications that autofollow or try to get get large masses of friends on social network sites?
☛ What do the statistics look like for a healthy Facebook fan page?
☛ Explain what a retweet is.
☛ What is RSS? Why is it important?
☛ Have you ever gotten a piece of content onto the front page of Digg?
☛ How frequently do you update Facebook and Twitter?
Q – 45 Role-specific Social Media Manager Interview Questions:
Ans-
☛ Describe the structure of your current marketing team. What is everyone’s role? Who do you report to?
☛ Discuss the relationship between social media and content marketing.
☛ Social media functionality is constantly evolving. How do you stay updated?
☛ What’s the relationship between social media and brand-building?
☛ What social channels do you prefer and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
☛ What other social media platforms do you use on your own time?
☛ What strategies would you recommend for building a social following?
☛ How would you describe the brand voice of your current company?
☛ How would you describe your company’s visual identity?
☛ What tools do you prefer for scheduling, content curation, project management, social listening, etc?
☛ How have you used social media for customer support?
☛ What’s the relationship between social media and sales?
☛ How would you present the results of your work?
☛ How would you encourage the creation of user-generated content?
☛ How do you integrate social media with offline events?
☛ Describe a time you interacted with an angry customer on social media.
☛ How would you handle negative comments about your brand on social media?
☛ What have you noticed about our current social presence? What could we improve?
Q – 46 Analytics & Marketing based Social Media Manager Interview Questions:
Ans-
☛ How do you measure success on social media?
☛ What metrics do you use to measure the effectiveness of social media?
☛ How would you tell that a social media campaign has failed?
☛ What key performance indicators would you recommend to report on social media efforts?
☛ Write down a table of contents for a social media strategy.
☛ What elements should go into a social media marketing plan?
☛ Why would we want to pay for social media advertising?
☛ What are the best types of things to advertise on a social networking site?
☛ What analytics software packages have you used?
☛ Describe the most successful social media campaign you have ever seen. What made it so successful? Could you duplicate that level of success?
☛ Describe a social media campaign you ran from start to finish.
☛ Provide an example of a social media campaign you are current running. Show me what channels it is in. Describe the next steps for your campaign.
☛ What are the elements that make a video go viral?
Q – 47 General Social Media Manager Interview Questions:
Ans-
☛ What are some of the challenges explaining social media to non-technical executives? How do you overcome objections about social media?
☛ If you were working at a firm which blocked employee access to Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites, do you think this is a good policy? If not, how would you convince the executive team to open up access for employees?
☛ What is the difference between moderating something and facilitating something?
☛ What are your strengths in social media?
☛ What are your weaknesses in social media?
☛ Which social bookmarking sites do you use?
☛ What social media tools do you use?
☛ What is your biggest mistake you’ve made in social media? How did you fix it?
☛ Have you ever held a live event in the social space? How would you market a live online event? How would you structure the event?
☛ How do you manage an online reputation? If one of our executives had a bad online reputation (bad press, etc) and wanted to fix it, what would you recommend?
☛ If we had a business crisis, what social media channels would you use to communicate through? How would you manage the messaging?
☛ What areas of social media would you recommend outsourcing?
☛ What are the risks with becoming involved in social media?
☛ Which is the best social check-in site?
☛ Are you the mayor of any place?
☛ What do you do offline to increase your online knowledge?
Q – 48 Explain me how would you handle a social media crisis? Yet again we have to highlight the US Airways social media crisis as an example of what can go wrong and how NOT to respond?
Ans- Make sure to respond promptly. The longer you take, the bigger the blunder looks to the consumer. Make sure any apology you give is honest and sincere. Otherwise, followers were rip it apart even more. Respond on all channels as well even if the incident only occurred on one.
Q – 49 Tell me what’s the most important thing a social media manager should be doing?
Ans- A solid answer would be monitoring and/or listening to the audience within the brand’s Social channels. Engaging regularly with fans and followers is evidence that you’re there – you care – and you’re interested in having them as a customer.
When you listen, you learn how to help them buy.
Q – 50 Explain me some tools that Social Media Manager wants to consider?
Ans- The tools that Social Media Manager would consider would be
☛ Zendesk:
Collecting messages from e-mail voice, customer engagement platform, social into one collaborative inbox
☛ HootSuite:
Team management, social media dashboard, reporting, and search/monitoring
☛ Sproutsocial:
Manage multiple brands, pages, searches. Assign tasks to team members, reporting, competitor research and post analytics
☛ Radian 6:
Enterprise social media management application for campaigns, listening, research and post analytics
☛ TweetDeck:
Just like HootSuite, TweetDeck helps you to manage multiple social media accounts- such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and LinkedIn
☛ Crowdbooster:
It measures users engagement overtime and across multiple social media networks. It also suggests what kind of content are best for the business
☛ WordPress Editorial Calendar Plugin:
An editorial calendar plugin will give you a bird’s eye view of your entire content publishing plan like publishing schedule, editorial task, blog post key topic, and ideas,
Q – 51 Do you know what is facebook EdgeRank and explain its importance?
Ans- Facebook EdgeRank is the algorithm that Facebook uses to determine what items populate your and your followers’ Facebook news feed.
It gives more weight to videos and pictures over text-only status updates, factors in how old the post is, and determines whether or not your fan would be interested in this content based on their previous interactions with your page.
Understanding EdgeRank very important because it determines which of your page’s posts get in front of your fans’ eyes. You need your content to be engaging because if the fans disregard that post, it can ruin your page’s affinity score with that fan, decreasing the chance that they will see your future posts.
Q – 52 Tell us what tools do you use for posting, tracking and measuring social media?
Ans- You’re trying to learn what their process is for publishing and what tools they are familiar with. You’ll want them to mention how they tie social media activity to business KPIs.
Q – 53 Explain what set of skills required to become a Social Media Manager?
Ans- To become a Social Media Manager, you should have a
☛ Native understanding of each social media network
☛ Ability to connect corporate objectives to messaging, content and campaigns
☛ Ability to write concisely
☛ Ability to sympathize, engage and effectively communicate with a diverse range of people and opinions
☛ Provide customer service and handle complaints
☛ Deep understanding of the products or services the company renders
☛ To intuitively know how your audience experience the brand, communicate online and how to leverage those opportunities
Q – 54 Explain and give us an example of a limitation on a social platform that you have experienced? How did you overcome this?
Ans- A social media manager should know that social networks come with limitations; API calls, bandwidth limitations, character limits etc…
If a social media manager has never run into limitations and hasn’t experienced how to overcome them, then this likely means that they are not very experienced. In fact, they will probably be completely new to the social media landscape.
Asking how they overcome any hurdles with their past or current clients will give you a good indication of how they respond to adversity.
Q – 55 Tell us how active are you on social media and how many people are you connected with?
Ans- You don’t need to have as many followers as Justin Bieber or be like Gary Vaynerchuck to impress your employers. However, your following or at least your activity on social media channels should reflect your passion for it and act as a sample of your overall communication skills.
Q – 56 Tell me how do you measure social return on investment (ROI)?
Ans- To measure the ROI that you invested in social media, you can consider using tools like the Conversation Measurement Tool on Facebook and optimized CPM. You can also use Google Analytics or LinkedIn, which have their own analytics. The criteria remain same to track the traffic like clicks, shares, purchases, number of likes, etc. ROI metric may also include
☛ e-mail subscription
☛ Website blog traffic
☛ Webinar registration
☛ Registration for content downloads,etc.
Q – 57 Tell us how would you deal with a negative comments or a social media crisis?
Ans- To deal with a negative or heated comments over social media sites you can use following steps
☛ Respond Quickly:
The first 24 hours for any post on the social media site is crucial for any negative comments made. Justify your brand or content if it is legitimate or else apologize if you are wrong. Don’t use an approach of tit for tat
☛ Create crisis FAQs:
Create a web page and put all the information about the crisis in one place so that it can help you to respond the crisis when it really occurs the FAQs should include
☛ ☛ Acknowledgment of crisis
☛ ☛ Details about the occurrence
☛ ☛ If available, photos or videos
☛ ☛ How company found out
☛ ☛ Specific action takes in response,
☛ Document every facet:
Once you hit by the social media crisis record each bit of it like tweets, blog comments, status updates,
☛ Never send third reply:
A third reply is an argument and not a justification, on third reply you take it offline
☛ Seek help from experienced community manager:
Community manager is aware of the in and out of the product and knows well how to handle disgruntled customers
Q – 58 Explain how would they allocate your budget for social media advertising?
Ans- Ask them to describe a plan for how best to allocate your budget and how they would know if it’s successful.
A typical budget consideration is for Facebook ads. Depending on your company and your market, a minimum $500/month is a good start.
Investment in social media and content marketing is prerequisite for success. There are 6 main ways you’re going to invest if you want to see ROI (return on investment):
☛ Financial
☛ Time
☛ Manpower
☛ Attention
☛ Monitoring, publishing and reporting software
☛ Training
Q – 59 Tell us what is a limitation you have experienced on a social media platform? How did you overcome this?
Ans- You could just answer this by saying that you used a different platform to cover the shortcomings of the other. This isn’t a bad answer. In fact, it can be part of a good answer. However, you should definitely know how to overcome or at least deal with limitations on social media platforms.
For example, Facebook has severe limitations when it comes to organic (non-paid) reach. One way to overcome this without paying on Facebook is to use email marketing and subscription-based methods to gently guide people to the page with links and suggestions (a strategy recommended by Facebook Marketing Expert Mari Smith).4 If you have your own awesome anecdote already, that’s even better!
Q – 60 Explain what online communities have you managed in the past?
Ans- Creating profiles and pages and then posting content to them isn’t the job – anyone can do that. The ability to build and engage with the community is the qualifying test of whether someone is a social media manager or a social media user.
Q – 61 Tell me how do you deal with negative comments or a brand reputation crisis?
Ans- The way they define ‘crisis’ can tell you a lot about how much experience they have. If they haven’t had a real crisis in their own experience, they should at least be familiar with some famous brand reputation blunders. Dealing with negative comments or reviews properly is vital to this position, ask for examples.
Q – 62 Tell us what social platforms do you specialise in? Why would these particular platforms be right for our business?
Ans- Different social networks have different audiences and practices. Not every network is right for every business or industry. For example, how could a pharmaceutical company possibly engage in drug marketing on Twitter? The reality is that most businesses can take advantage of the networks out there in some way, but if there are limitations, you want your social media manager to be aware of them.
Q – 63 Explain would Google+ be worth using for our business?
Ans- This should highlight the extent of your potential social media managers Google+ knowledge. Google indexes Google+ content faster than content posted anywhere else. It’s a platform that has grown rapidly since its launch in 2011 and is now one of the main social platforms.
A social media manager should know this and should understand whether your target audience is present there, thus viable for your business, and how Google+ can be leveraged to fulfill your wider marketing objectives.
Q – 64 Explain me what do you think is the most important thing a Social Media Manager should be doing?
Ans- A solid answer you should look for would be something along the lines of ‘monitoring’ and/or ‘listening’ to your audiences within your social domains. It’s quite an ambiguous question, but the answers will provide insight into their general thinking about managing your social campaigns.
The key word many fail to incorporate is social. If answers are not somewhat geared towards a social dynamic, then they have missed the point completely.
Q – 65 Explain what are relevant metrics for tracking social media success?
Ans- Engagement, brand reach and lead generation is what helps show the ROI of social media to a business, these measurements show the results of your job. Show the interviewer that you are an expert analyzing the metrics and have solutions to improve them.
Q – 66 Tell me what is something that most every tweet should include and why?
Ans- Most every tweet should include a link to something; whether it be an article, a page to enter a give-a-way, or a photo/video, tweets should be thought of as a launchpad to something else where your followers can find more information about the tweet.
Putting a link in your tweets adds value to your followers and it gives them the opportunity to engage with your tweet & brand. If your link is useful and/or desirable to them, they’ll undoubtedly pay even more attention to you once you’ve proven yourself as a good source of whatever it is they want.
Q – 67 Tell me what do you think should be the goals of our Facebook Google+ Twitter account?
Ans- As with the previous question, this answer depends on each company and on the specific needs they have. Again, you should investigate what they have done in the past on their social networks and also what they could improve. Hint: Make sure to share reachable and measurable goals.
Q – 68 Tell me how do you evaluate new social platforms? How do you stay on top of the latest updates and innovations in Social Media?
Ans- The social landscape is always changing. Even the most experienced social media managers need to refine their skills, update their strategies and practice new techniques. A social media manager should have experience with building engagement and showing results across multiple platforms and with several different tools.
There are some platforms considered to be the juggernauts right now, but remember the days of AOL, MySpace and eBay? Would you consider hiring a social media manager who pitched at engaging your I.T customers on MySpace? I doubt it.
The point is that the social landscape is dynamic and a social media manager should be constantly evaluating new platforms and making recommendations to you on whether they are suitable for you to explore.
Q – 69 Tell us how is ROI defined in social media?
Ans- Contrary to popular thinking, ROI can always be measured in social media. But it can be perceptual. What are your goals? Were they achieved? If so, then you had a positive ROI. Did your campaigns help your business in any way or have any positive effects? If they did, then you were successful.
Social media ROI is not always tied to tangible business benefits. Ask the social media manager which factors can be measured and how they will be reported to demonstrate the value they bring to your business.
Q – 70 Tell me can you describe your biggest social media failure?
Ans- Everyone has failures, some larger than others. Of course, what you really want to know, is how they dealt with it. Gain insight into their coping skills and how they deal with negatives by seeing how the issue was resolved. Pay attention to what they did (or didn’t do) to ensure that the failure wouldn’t happen again.
Q – 71 Explain me what are your favorite social media blogs?
Ans- This is another question where there is no right answer. Be prepared to explain why you picked your sites though. If you don’t follow any blogs, try browsing a few so you’ll at least be prepared for this question.
Q – 72 Explain me what Social Media platform(s) are best for your business? (and have them explain why)?
Ans- Ask them to describe the “personality” of your company brand in 3 words. They should have done research on your company and your customers before assessing the potential across today’s social media channels. Facebook, Twitter, your company blog, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube are awesome channels and each has different marketing tactics.
Q – 73 Explain some tricks that can drive more traffic to your blog posts?
Ans- Few tricks that can drive more traffic to your blog posts are
☛ Promote your content or BlogPost across a wider variety of Platforms like
☛ ☛ com
☛ ☛ Tumblr
☛ ☛ com
☛ Create a 6-second preview of your post with app(iPhone) like Vine and post it on tweeter with a link to the blog post
☛ Give a short presentation of content or blog on Slide-Share and provide link to the content or to any relevant content
☛ Pin your post to Pinterest contributors board by choosing attractive image, title of your blog post, adding keywords and hashtags
☛ Use Instagram to share the image or title of your blog post. Share your blog post images to Tumblr, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and Foursquare
Q – 74 Tell me what is the responsibility of social media manager?
Ans- Social media manager implements the company’s social media marketing.
The Job role includes-
☛ Developing company’s content strategy
☛ Creating relevant content
☛ Blogging
☛ Community participation and leadership
☛ Promotion strategy on social sites
☛ Monitor, listen and respond to users in a “Social” way while cultivating sales and leads
☛ Develop and expand community or blogger outreach efforts
☛ Create, design and manage promotions and social ad campaigns
☛ Identify threats and report notable threats to appropriate management
☛ Respond to social media crisis or negative comment scenario
☛ Define strategies to enhance or build the follower fan base
Q – 75 Tell us which social media platforms are you best at using and why?
Ans- When you answer this question, spend the most time talking about the platform you’re most skilled with and explain why this is the case. However, you should mention all the major platforms and details their strengths. Talk about how Twitter is best for conversations, Facebook is great for advertising, LinkedIn is best for recruiting and sharing career-related articles, and how Google+ is an underrated tool that is actually valuable for creating a social media community.
Q – 76 Tell me which social media channels do you recommend for our business and why?
Ans- This answers two questions at once. Has the candidate done the research on your company ahead of time, and how well versed they are in the various social platforms. Pay attention if they mention demographics, style or frequency of messaging, and overall strategy.
Q – 77 Tell me how do you check and stay on top of the latest updates, innovations, and new platforms in social media?
Ans- Social media is an ever-changing landscape that requires constant and ongoing learning and adapt. Even the most experienced social media managers need to refine their skills. They update their strategies, learn and practice new techniques and stay on top of the latest changes to new and existing platforms.
Q – 78 Explain what sort of results can we expect?
Ans- A good social media manager will manage your expectations and let you know what results you could achieve. Remember that social media managers are not psychics. They should act on your behalf using the best practices of the industry, but there is a lot that is out of their control.
They should be able to give you a rough idea of what they bring to the table based on their previous results and experiences. If a social media manager cannot communicate this effectively to you, then they probably don’t have the level of experience you need.
Q – 79 Explain how would you allocate our Social Media advertising budget?
Ans- A social media manager should be able to describe a plan for how best to allocate your advertising budget and how they would know if it’s successful. Specific metrics and KPIs should be given, analysed and reported. The choice of advertising platform will also allow you to gauge their perception of where they think your business should be promoted, in what format and to what audiences.
Q – 80 Tell me what blogs or Social Media sites do you regularly read?
Ans- Social media is always evolving and effectively marketing on social platforms can be a bit like trying to hit a moving target. Google+, for example, had become a commonly used tool for 40% of marketers within only a year of launch. That is a huge gain in such a small space of time. This is just how social media works.
New blogs and social sites come and go within the blink of an eye. A good social media manager should stay on top of these changes, which means a lot of reading. They should be able to list multiple reputable social sites and explain why it is they follow them.
Q – 81 Tell us what strategies would you implement for helping generating leads (or conversions)?
Ans- Share the facts! Talk about successful strategies you have used in other projects. You may also describe strategies you think could be useful to their company in particular.
Q – 82 Do you know how should Google+ communities be used in a social media strategy?
Ans- Google+ communities are a great way to find conversations around your industry and begin engaging with users in that community. These communities are great places to find new customers and introduce them to your brand or product. Brands should be active in these communities, but as always, they shouldn’t post only about themselves.
Q – 83 Explain me how would you deal with negative comments or a brand reputation crisis?
Ans- Show the hiring manager that you are able to react quickly and face a crisis with self-confidence and efficiency. You may use examples of famous brand reputation crises to tell what you think was done well and what not.
(There are many examples to analyze!!)
Q – 84 Explain me why do you love marketing?
Ans- Or, “Which aspects of our business are you passionate about?” You want to hire someone who’s both qualified and has the desire to do the work. Otherwise, why would they work for you instead of the company next door?
Part of their answer will lie in their body language and enthusiasm. The other part will lie in how concrete their answer is. Get at the details by asking a follow-up question, like: “Let’s say you’re at home, kicking around, and doing something related to marketing.
What is it that you’re doing?” Perhaps they’re reading their five favorite marketing sites, or analyzing traffic patterns of websites for fun, or writing in their personal blog, or optimizing their LinkedIn profile. Whatever it is, you want to be sure they’re deeply passionate about the subject matter you’d hire them for.
Q – 85 Tell us what will our responsibilities be as a client?
Ans- A social media manager doesn’t operate in a vacuum. They will need to be in the loop with your other marketing activities. You’ll also need to provide any necessary resources and wider marketing information or materials.
A social media manager should have clear guidelines for their role, and yours as a client. This should typically be communicated to you prior to establishing a working relationship.
Q – 86 Tell me can we run a “Like and Share to Win” style contest on our Facebook page?
Ans- If a social media manager does not know the answer to this, then move on. Its imperative you find someone who knows the rules and guidelines of each and every social platform and who will not have your business in violation of any Terms of Service.
As a heads up, on Facebook you have to use a third-party app to host the contest and cannot use the ‘Share’ button, ‘Like’ button or require a comment in order to be entered to win. Ensure you meet Facebook’s guidelines while running Facebook contests in order to avoid getting your page shutdown.
Q – 87 Tell me how do you define success?
Ans- The amount of followers isn’t the only sign of success in social media. A social media manager should be able to help you define success on a strategic and tactical level, in order to support your larger marketing goals.
If a social media manager has a limited view of success, or is unable to explain performance measurement beyond the volume of audiences, they won’t be able to provide you with higher level strategic solutions.
Q – 88 Explain about SEO and its relationship with social media?
Ans- There are several techniques of improving SEO with the help of social media. Make sure that they understand the latest Google algorithm, what is rewarded and punished. They should also be aware of the latest social algorithms and policies. Google Analytics should be part of this discussion.
Q – 89 Do you know what are some of the best practices on Twitter?
Ans- Always use hashtags and mentions! Doing this will mean more people see your tweets and retweet. Some of these people might have big followings or clout that will benefit your company. Twitter is a great tool for conversing with customers so make sure to reply to their tweets as much as you can. Use hashtags to connect the conversation with other conversations in related topics.
Q – 90 Tell us how do you use social media as a tool for customer service?
Ans- Social media is a great tool for customer service since you can converse with customers directly, use analytics to see how they’re responding to content, and find influencers to chat with and bring over to your network. Some of these influencers might even be customers.
Most social media employers stress the power conversation so have examples of how you’ve reached out to customers. Social media is also a good indicator of overall company vitality and analytics.
Q – 91 Tell me are they accomplished in a social marketing environment AND in a social customer service environment?
Ans- Ask your candidate to define the difference between the two.
☛ Social marketing environment calls for a more conversational approach. Most social media conversations don’t revolve around sales. Your candidate should be able to recognize where someone is in their purchase journey and guide them to their destination.
☛ Social customer service environment requires empathy, patience, and the ability to resolve conflict. Your candidate must be able to recognize situations that may call for an escalation to management. Remember: they’re not just responding to that one customer, but for an audience of future customers!
Q – 92 Explain how do you measure social media success?
Ans- Use various tools to check the site optimization, the parameters to check the success of social media success are
☛ Rise in the number of followers
☛ Increase in the number of leads
☛ Number of Inbound links to your site through social sites
☛ Number of bloggers comment, social shares and traffic generated
☛ Increase in the total sales made online
☛ Number of Posts published
☛ Conversion- Number of subscription
☛ Account Creation
☛ Query form submission