Tips on Hiring a Social Media Consultant – Hilary Topper, HJMT Public Relations Inc.

Tips on Hiring a Social Media Consultant	June 20, 2011
Categories: Industry,My Agency,Social Media

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Are you ready to take the plunge and hire a social media consultant to help your company get more visibility and exposure?

If you are, Here are some questions to ask your prospective consultant:

How long have you been involved with Social Media? Many “social media” experts are relatively new. You want to hire someone with a proven track record and experience.
Have you had any recent successful campaign that you planned and implemented?
How would you handle a negative comment?
Who would be my project manager?
How will you go about growing our community? Will ads be incorporated into the mix or will your you try to grow it organically?
Do you incorporates video or podcasts into the social media mix?
Do you incorporate blogs? How are blogs tagged?
Are blogs bookmarked on Digg, Delicious and StumpleUpon?
Is there a plan of action and an evaluation process?
How do you track the metrics of the social media campaign?

Hiring the right social media consultant is not an easy task. Your consultant will be representing your brand and you want to make sure that he/she is the right fit to promote your product or service. You also want to make sure that the person has creative, different ideas. Does this consultant stand out from the rest?

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COMMENTS

Lori

It is a big decision, so do your research!
Bruce Peters

These questions are all very useful. Do you suggest that you need to be clear about your “objectives” for SM
as well?
B
Ethansteiner

What is an appropriate starting salary range for a “Social Media Expert”?
Hilary

Absolutely! What do you want to get out of it? Remember social media is word of mouth marketing. The more people know about you, what you do and like you, the more likely you will get a referral or develop a business relationship! Thanks for the post…
Hilary

Ethan, no one can possibly be an “expert.” Social media and social networking sites change all the time. Can you clarify for me what you are looking for? Someone right out of college? or, someone with five years experience?
Ethan Steiner

My thoughts are to put your marketing budget where your customers are. If your customers are using social media – then you should allocate budget to that.

I see a lot of companies spending large portions of their budgets on social media consultants and processes only to have it generate few leads and backfire as the rest of marketing opportunities go underfunded.

Here is two basic rules that all marketers should follow:

1. Create a stellar customer experience. Nothing beats word of mouth. You can’t possibly monitor everything people post on the internet – but you can do your best to ensure that all customers are satisfied with your business.

2. Get a compelling message in front of your potential customers – wherever they are. If the majority of your customers look for your type of business on facebook then you need a page, ads, fans, everything. If the majority of your customers use facebook to keep up with old friends and family, but not shop for your type of business, then maybe an online ad campaign directing people to your website would be better.

Social media isn’t online wizardry that requires a specialized consultant. It’s a very simple to learn tool that any experienced marketing person can learn and use.
Hilary

Thanks Ethan! Good points!