27 Social Media Supervisor Interview Questions & Solutions

Social media managers (SMMs) play a pivotal position for any fashionable model; they’re chargeable for a lot of the enterprise’s exterior communication and engagement with present and potential clients.

When it’s time to rent a social media supervisor, a strong job description and asking the proper questions might help you rent a certified skilled who will take your social technique to the following degree.

The next checklist of social media supervisor interview questions is a good place to start out. We broke it down based mostly on an important abilities and capabilities wanted to excel. We additionally share our ideas on what to search for in candidates’ solutions.

Plus, if you happen to’re a social media supervisor searching for your subsequent gig, this checklist might help you put together for upcoming interviews. Our questions will cowl:

Common expertise and social media information questions

Step one in most interviews is to know the candidate’s fundamental social media information and their normal skilled expertise.

1. What social media accounts have you ever managed up to now?

This may inform which social platforms the candidate has expertise with, what industries they’ve labored in and in the event that they’re used to working with massive or small follower bases. Ideally, you wish to know that the interviewee has expertise within the platforms you utilize.

Whereas applicable expertise is definitely one thing to search for in a candidate, relying on the extent of the position, it may not be probably the most crucial. Steadiness the reply to this query with those beneath to attain a deeper understanding of the person’s coaching, drive and significant pondering abilities.

2. When given a job you’ve by no means carried out earlier than, what steps do you are taking to make sure it will get accomplished?

Search for concrete examples of conditions the place the candidate has truly needed to be taught one thing new and prevented letting any main balls drop. Additionally search for proof of the candidate’s willingness to ask for assist or be self-sufficient—each are good indicators they’ll thoughtfully method a tough job.

3. How would you describe our model?

The reply to this query might give perception into how properly the candidate ready for the interview. Analysis and a strong understanding of the model are two crucial competencies for good social media managers; if candidates haven’t taken the time to get to know your model, it might sign an absence of due diligence.

4. What are the defining traits of our voice?

This one goes hand-in-hand with the earlier query. Drill all the way down to see if the candidate has a grasp on how the enterprise’s model persona speaks. As the one who might be crafting a lot of this messaging, it’s useful for any applicant to have a cursory information of what that may sound like.

Group and time administration questions

Let’s face it: being a social media supervisor is far more than crafting witty captions or creating the right photos. It additionally requires a wholesome dose of challenge administration to remain on high of varied contributors, influencers, platforms and accounts. The next questions get to the guts of interviewees’ penchant for group.

5. This social media position wears quite a lot of hats. How do you keep organized and prioritize every day duties?

A really perfect reply to this query would come with concrete examples of methods and instruments the candidate has put in place, and real-world examples of how they arrive into play of their every day work.

6. Do you presently use any challenge administration instruments? Which one(s) and the way?

The very best reply could be they’ve deep expertise utilizing the software your division is presently utilizing. However needless to say hottest challenge administration instruments operate pretty equally. If the candidate exhibits a robust working information of challenge administration rules—and a historical past of utilizing most of these instruments successfully—you’ll be able to undoubtedly give them a go on this query.

7. How do you deal with your schedule being interrupted?

This query will get into the nitty gritty of your social media supervisor candidate’s persona. Many SMMs are detailed, task-oriented people who like working with a to-do checklist or on a set schedule. However, as everyone knows, issues occur. And it’s essential to know that any potential SMM can roll with the punches, when wanted.

8. Describe a challenge or job the place you wanted to contain different groups. How did you set up and collaborate together with your colleagues to finish that challenge?

Collaborating with stakeholders is a serious element of most advertising roles so the flexibility to work cross-functionally is paramount. Search for a selected, real-world instance of a time when the interviewee needed to work with individuals exterior their typical group. Particularly related could be any tales about working with solely totally different departments, senior leaders or exterior collaborators.

Social media content material and technique questions

The next questions search to uncover whether or not candidates can transcend surface-level social media administration to assist technique and produce content material that drives outcomes.

9. How do you keep on high of the most recent tendencies, improvements and new platforms in social media? Do you will have a go-to information outlet or commerce publication?

Whereas it may be good to listen to a candidate point out a information outlet or commerce publication you additionally take pleasure in or comply with, the true level of this query is to know whether or not they commonly keep abreast of what’s happening within the business. The social media panorama modifications quickly, and with out an up-to-date information of the most recent algorithm modifications or platform updates, your social technique might endure.

10. Based mostly on our present social presence, what content material would you suggest growing extra of and why?

Right here’s a possibility to have a look beneath the hood on the form of social media supervisor your candidate may be. How a lot of a danger taker are they? Do they LOVE video? Are they followers of 1 platform over one other? Take into consideration their solutions by way of the lens of what you realize to be true to your model and what has labored properly up to now. But additionally needless to say candidates won’t be aware of your inside info, so their thought course of and reasoning is very essential to contemplate.

11. Do you will have expertise working with model ambassadors or influencers? How have you ever or would you discover and handle these individuals?

In a creator’s economic system, most manufacturers are discovering they profit from partnerships with influencers or model ambassadors. Expertise working with these collaborators is an effective signal. If the candidate hasn’t managed these relationships earlier than, see in the event that they know greatest practices and if they’ll consider specific influencers who may be a superb match to your model.

12. Discuss a marketing campaign you managed from begin to end that you simply’re most pleased with. What did you obtain and the way?

That is one other alternative to get a style of how your candidate thinks and the way they prefer to work. You’ll additionally see how they method assessing and impacting objectives. Are they a planner? Do they commonly have a look at knowledge and course appropriate as wanted? Are they able to relating a selected marketing campaign to the bigger social and advertising methods?

13. What are your favourite manufacturers on social? Why?

A candidate’s reply to this query will give perception into a few various things: 1) How plugged in they’re to the social media panorama, resembling whether or not they know the most important gamers and maintain observe of them; and a pair of) What sort of content material they’re drawn to. If their solutions appear far out of your social model, ask probing inquiries to go deeper into their reasoning and guarantee they perceive the excellence between these manufacturers’ personas.

Aim-setting questions

Actually any place goes to should be adept at aim setting. However social media, particularly, strikes so shortly that it’s particularly essential for SMMs to have a transparent line of sight to their objectives and the way they’re progressing in opposition to them.

14. Are you able to describe the method you utilize to set and observe social media objectives?

Pay attention for clues that the person understands the significance of aim setting and reviewing analytics commonly to maintain observe of progress. Additionally see in the event that they perceive how these objectives impression bigger enterprise targets.

15. In the midst of a marketing campaign, you discover that you simply’re not pacing to fulfill your aim. Describe the way you’d readjust and the suggestions you’d make to get again on observe.

Flexibility could be tough to determine in a short interview, however it is without doubt one of the most essential traits of profitable social media managers. Agility based mostly on laborious knowledge is an much more crucial competency. Be aware of how the applicant used knowledge to determine the place issues went awry and in addition the plans they put in place to get issues again on observe.

16. Describe a time whenever you didn’t obtain a aim. What did you be taught from that and the way did you apply that lesson transferring ahead?

The reply to this query can measure skilled maturity. How many people have skilled a profession setback or barrier we needed to overcome? Even when the applicant is a bit inexperienced, this query might help to deliver ahead how they suppose and carry out when the going will get powerful.

Reporting and analytics questions

A serious element of social media administration is powerful reporting and analytics. With so many instruments obtainable to help wealthy evaluation, well-developed data-driven abilities like social listening are a trademark of skilled, well-trained SMMs.

17. Do you will have any analytics certifications or expertise utilizing analytics instruments?

Needless to say information of particular instruments is much less essential than a normal understanding of how social analytics work. What’s most essential is how they use knowledge to optimize campaigns and techniques within the quick and long run.

18. What’s your method to social media knowledge evaluation?

Right here, you need to be listening for proof of a robust mix of crucial pondering, knowledge governance and execution abilities. Leaning too closely on just one or two of those pillars is usually a signal of an unbalanced social knowledge technique.

19. How do you translate knowledge into actionable suggestions?

You’re in search of candidates to inform you how they work with social analytics to transcend simply reporting on knowledge tendencies. Ideally, you need them to show a data-driven method to enchancment—for instance, utilizing social listening to find out key matters to cowl or utilizing submit efficiency to determine which days and instances to submit.

20. What do you suppose are an important metrics for measuring ROI on social media?

Greater than the particular metrics candidates point out, pay attention for the reasoning behind every of their solutions. This could present how properly they perceive what every metric can inform them about their campaigns and how one can use that knowledge to make changes.

Communication and collaboration questions

Even when they’re a group of 1, social media managers have to speak with the remainder of the corporate and, extra importantly, your clients, so communication abilities are tremendous essential.

21. Describe your communication and studying types.

The reply to this immediate might help interviewers decide if the interviewee is an effective cultural match for the group. Pay attention for clues that the applicant’s working types would mesh properly with the present group’s practices. Do they use Slack or want quite a lot of conferences? The Meyers-Briggs and DiSC fashions can present detailed perception.

22. What do you suppose is an important communication ability or high quality to have when responding to individuals on social media?

A serious portion of any SMM’s work entails partaking with and responding to a model’s viewers, which requires totally different abilities than the technique growth or content material creation elements of the position. A very good reply ought to deal with the viewers’s wants, embody language that jives with the model’s bigger exterior communications technique and feels applicable for the kind of customer support you wish to be identified for.

23. Inform us a couple of state of affairs the place you failed to speak appropriately. In hindsight, what would you will have accomplished in a different way?

This query seeks to get to the guts of a studying expertise born out of failure. We’ve all had them, however one of the best of us will use these tough conditions to construct our skilled ability units and learn to do issues higher sooner or later. Probe for proof that the applicant has evaluated the occasion critically and objectively to make use of it as a possibility for skilled development.

Questions on difficult conditions

As we mentioned within the earlier query, in one of the best circumstances, difficult conditions could be parlayed into studying experiences that allow development.

24. Are you able to discuss a time whenever you handled an upset or offended follower? How did you handle the state of affairs?

Some of these conditions are a few of the most tough a social media supervisor should cope with. It could really feel like a private assault when a follower sounds off or makes accusations in opposition to a model you handle. A seasoned SMM ought to be capable of look previous their very own private emotions to discover a response that can make the follower really feel heard whereas upholding the model’s values.

25. How do you fight burnout/job fatigue?

Burnout is an actual danger for many people in fashionable workplaces, however social media managers could also be particularly vulnerable to this illness as a result of fast-paced, public-facing nature of their roles. It is vital for candidates to have a transparent technique of self care and resilience that enables them to do their jobs with out it affecting their psychological well being in the long run. Pay attention for an appreciation of the presence of burnout in at present’s office and proof they’ve frolicked interested by a plan to sidestep it.

26. Describe a state of affairs during which you modified your method in the course of a challenge. How did you’re employed to implement this modification easily?

One other query that seeks to uncover an SMM candidate’s capability to be versatile. A very good reply will embody particulars about how the candidate recognized the issue, used laborious knowledge to assist their findings after which collaborated with the suitable group members to regulate the execution efficiently.

27. If you happen to obtain unfavorable suggestions from an employer, colleague or consumer, how do you handle that suggestions and issue it into your work transferring ahead?

The power to just accept constructive suggestions and use it to gas private development is a ability that almost all of us spend years perfecting. A candidate’s reply to this query might help interviewers get an thought of how they work with different individuals, how they consider their abilities and the ambitions they’ve for his or her profession future.

Subsequent steps

Now that you’ve got reviewed all of our urged social media supervisor interview questions and solutions, you’re able to take your hiring sport to the following degree.

At Sprout, we wish to assist corporations rent one of the best social media managers within the enterprise and supply them with the proper instruments to achieve success. If hiring is in your to-do checklist, obtain our Construct Your Social Media Workforce [Free Hiring Manager Toolkit] to get our greatest recommendation on how one can appeal to, recruit and retain one of the best expertise.