If you want to successfully land a job as a social media manager, then you’ll need to prepare ahead of time for the social media manager interview. After receiving your resume, the interview is the first tool the hiring manager will use to screen candidates.
What is a Social Media Manager?
A social media manager is typically responsible for managing the social media presence of a brand, company or a single person. The social media manager engages with audiences on a variety of social media platforms by creating posts, answering messages and by responding to customer comments. Social media managers create marketing campaigns, promotions and other engaging content that will attract new customers and retain current ones. Additionally, they monitor social media analytics by using a combination of free and paid tools, and they regularly create content in a variety of formats to see which types of content best reaches customer audiences.
To become a social media manager, you usually need a bachelor’s degree in public relations, marketing or something similar. If you don’t have a degree, then it’s recommended that you have at least a few years of experience and a solid portfolio. According to Glassdoor, social media managers can expect to make an average of $54,313 a year.
To prepare yourself ahead of the interview, check out below the top five social media manager interview questions that are typically asked during a social media manager interview.
Top Five Social Media Manager Interview Questions w/ Answers
To prepare for the interview, it’s important to look over the top five social media manager key questions that interviewers typically asked along with answers that are guaranteed to give you an enhanced professional image.
1. What are your strategies for measuring return on investment (ROI) on social media?
For this question, you should focus on specific strategies that you’ve implemented. Additionally, be able to provide examples and outcomes you’ve seen as a result of your work. Additionally, you should also suggest what your plan would be if you were to get the job. What type of strategies would you put in place to measure their social media’s ROI?
Measuring social media’s ROI typically consists of calculating the company’s reach, measuring sentiment and tracking metrics. To calculate a company’s reach, look at how many potential followers you can connect with on social media. You can measure sentiment by utilizing a wide variety of natural language processing tools to see what people are saying about the company and the brand around the web. You can track metrics by using Google Analytics, Facebook/Linkedin/etc. Analytics and Hootsuite to see where the site’s traffic is coming from. You might also recommend asking customers how they heard about the company and tracking how many say that they have found about the company and brand on social media. This will give you great insight into how well your social media efforts are paying off.
2. What is one of your favorite social media brands and why?
This question should give the interviewer insight into the social media strategies the resonate with you. It might also give them insight into strategies that you might incorporate. When answering this question, you can focus on the interactions they have with their audience. For example, consider talking about any of the following:
- how the company positively interacts with followers by showing personal concern for them
- how they take the time to engage with their audience by responding to comments and answering questions
It’s important for companies to engage with their audience on a daily basis, whether they are answering questions, engaging in positive dialogue or even putting out fires.
3. What strategies have you implemented to improve your company’s brand previously?
For this question, be sure to give them specific strategies you’ve implemented as well as how you know these strategies were successful. Some strategies to implement a company’s brand might include any of the following:
– Leveraging user-generated content
– Making good use of live videos
– Using Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. to post ads
– Discovering what hashtags are trending and relevant to the brand and using them in posts
– Use attention-grabbing images that get people talking
Those are just some examples of what a social media manager might use to improve a company’s brand.
4. How do you handle negative reviews or comments left by your followers?
No company is immune from receiving negative comments, no matter how hard a company tries to avoid it. The important thing here is to acknowledge this and to address what you’ve done or would do in this situation.
When it comes to negative comments or reviews, you should never ignore them. It’s important in these situations that you’re sympathetic and apologize sincerely for any bad experience the customer may have had. Make sure that you address any personal concerns the customer has in a personal manner. So, rather than send a cookie cutter message, take the time to write a heartfelt response. It’s also important to take the negative experience out of the spotlight and continue to engage privately. You don’t want to remove any comments, but just acknowledge that you will be addressing them privately.
When you’re engaging with any customer who’s had a negative experience, you should see what you can do to make the customer’s experience better. For example, you could offer them a coupon or some free merchandise.
5. What was one of your most successful social campaigns?
Again, you want to be specific and detail exactly what the campaign was and what made it successful. Maybe the campaign brought the company a great deal of business. Or perhaps the company gained a significant following on multiple social media channels within a short time. Whatever the campaign was, you want to make sure that you explain the metric in that was used to measure the campaign’s success.
Conclusion
As with any interview, you can only prepare so much. You always want to be aware of potential questions you might face in an interview, although you can never really be sure. Check out the company’s Glassdoor profile to see if there are any interview reviews. Even if there aren’t any for the social media manager role, there may be reviews for other positions within the same department you’re applying.
If you carefully look over these social media manager interview questions and the recommendations provided, along with other tools available, there is no reason you will not rock your interview.
