Social Media Executive Interview Preparation Guide

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People love to see original video content that is fun and sharable. It shouldn’t be so obviously promotional from the start. People should want to share it simply because it is amazing! This video content ultimately connects to all the other social media platforms you are working with and benefits strategy and marketing as a whole. It might even go viral.

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.

A huge part of a social media role is to understand the trends within the industry – so you want to make sure that you understand everything that’s going on in the social media world before you step into that interview.

Have a look at social media websites and sign yourself up to social media updates – this way if you get asked about any social media trends, you’ll be as a cool as a cucumber. With this answer you could also talk about your predictions for any future trends. This will show the employer that you’re on the ball, and you’re constantly looking at what might come next in social media and how you can use that to communicate with customers.

Every social network is not right for every industry. Just ask anyone in the pharmaceutical industry how they could possibly engage in drug marketing on Twitter. The reality is that most organizations can take full advantage of the networks out there, but if there are limitations, you want your social media professional to be aware of them.

Working in social media can be like trying to hit a moving target, so staying up to date is crucial. Before you attend the job interview, look at your social media blog bookmarks.

“Blogging and Twitter and stuff”. Excuse yourself for a bathroom break and don’t come back.

“All of the conversations going on between people and people and businesses and such online”. Not bad.

“A trendy term to describe a new kind of mass media”. Totally acceptable.

“Oh, I read this book I bought from Amazon.com”. Wargh. By the time that book went to print it was out of date. No go.

“I’m always learning”. Good answer.

“I read a lot of blogs, and try to use as many different tools as I can”. Also good.

“I go to conferences”. Yeahhhhhh. Might be OK. Answers to the other 9 questions should tell you.

You must decide on your goals and objectives before you start tracking and measuring your social ROI so you know which factors you are measuring. Social ROI can be measured in various ways. Customer acquisition, reach, traffic, lead generation, clicks, revenue, contest entries, etc. are some factors you can use to measure social ROI. After establishing what your online marketing goals are, you then assign financial values to each goal.

There are numerous key performance indicators like number of Active Followers, Demographics and Location, Likes and Shares, Comments, mentions, Traffic Data, Social Connections, Video/SlideShare Views, etc. that you should identify to determine the reach and engagement of the company on Social Platforms. By tracking the right KPI’s, your company will be able to make adjustments to your social media strategy and budget. You can mention some of the above mentioned KPIs which you feel are important from your point of view.

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.

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.

Don’t dismiss Google+ even if it isn’t your favorite part of social media strategy. Even if the people interviewing you don’t perceive it as being valuable compared to Facebook and Twitter, they don’t want to work with someone who wouldn’t be open to integrating it into an overall strategy. Explain how Google+ is a great resource for community building since it is a heavily curated and moderated community. Having a thriving community means people are talking more about your company and sharing more content. It also increases SEO which you already know is a supplementary part of social media marketing.

Writing blogs has become a day-to-day occurrence for a lot of businesses now, so it can pretty important for you to have some blog writing experience. If you haven’t, try and start now – you can set your own blog up on simple platforms like WordPress or Blogger or you could write blogs and post them on LinkedIn and other websites that relate to your subject area. This is a brilliant way to show off your writing skills and how you can engage a reader.

Just like your previous social media roles, make sure you’ve got some stats at the ready, so that you can tell your prospective employer how successful the blog has been.

Pretty self-explanatory. If they don’t have references….be cautious.

Bandwidth limitations, API calls, character limits…social networks come with limitations. Beware of an social media professionals who have never run into limitations and don’t have experience overcoming them. If they haven’t run into limitations, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist but, instead, likely means that this so called “expert” hasn’t had the range of experiences you might need.

Most people are unaware of the power of Google+ and have a profile because they heard that it is useful for search engine optimisation (SEO). Being a fairly new social network, on Google there is camaraderie that is rarely felt in more established networks. You can join communities (types of forums for different interests), host hangouts, troubleshoot technical problems, or do subtle product promotion. Social updates will rank on Google, and search results will feature in the top pages in your followers’ search results.

“6 months ago”. Yeah. OK. Bye.

“2 years ago”. Hey, not bad. Worth a chat.

“In 1992”. Er. Um. They’d better be referencing BBSes and Usenet.

The constantly changing world of social media requires managers to stay on top of the latest developments. How do you update your skills and knowledge of social media?

It is very essential to track Social Media success to know if you are advancing on the right path. Relevant metrics that can be used to track social media success can be:

☛ Google Analytics is an ideal way to measure how much traffic is being directed to your website from the various social media channels

☛ Reviewing the quality and relevance of the content of your business. Monitor unique page views, time on page and total pages viewed

☛ Observe share of voice which is nothing but the conversations about a company versus with that of your competitor’s. Share of voice can be obtained by a simple formula = company’s mentions on social media platforms/ competitor’s mentions on the same. You can use a free tool, SocialMention for the deriving the same

☛ Tracking the total size of community and engagement using a social CRM tool

☛ Tracking your Social Media Returns on the efforts you put. Add up the totals of your positive, neutral or negative mentions and measure them over time.

Not all audiences are the same. Knowing the benefits of a targeted audience for a marketing campaign is as important as knowing how to create such an audience for the company where you want to work. Take the time to identify how you can target the company's ideal audience before the interview.

“I auto-follow 20,000 people on Twitter”. If you’re OK with it, kick them in the groin for me. If not, nod politely and move on.

“I follow interesting, relevant people on Twitter, comment on relevant blog posts and try to get into the conversation”. Home run. Try not to weep with joy.

“We need to figure out the campaign first”. Good answer. Give them a hypothetical campaign to be sure, but clearly you’re on the right track.

In a recent survey by Social Media Today 34 % of Facebook users admitted that they spend less time on the network. Despite Facebook’s declining popularity, the popularity of social media, especially those used on smart phones, will continue to rise as humans are social by nature. Relevancy and SOLOMO (social local mobile) will remain important in social media. In addition, there is likely to be an increase in the use of technologies such as augmented reality and products like Google’s Glass technology, which we have already started seeing.

Social media “experts” are quickly becoming a dime-a-dozen. There are thousands of self-proclaimed experts out there, but you need a professional who knows your business and cares about your success. Be sure that the person you engage as your company/brand representative knows what sets them apart from their competition.

Any professional worth their salt will do some preliminary research before sitting down with you. If the person you interview doesn’t know (at least at a high level) what your competitors are doing, it might be a cause for concern. IMHO, they should be able to give you insight on the way your competitors are using the major social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

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.