Should You Hire a Social Media Expert?

This is a question that many business owners ask themselves. When considering whether to hire someone, you need to ask yourself several questions.

The first is, are you short on time? It takes a high level of commitment (mostly time) to post consistently on social media. The more channels you take advantage of, the more posting you will need to do. If you are currently working for others, and you simply don’t have enough time, or even if you are working for yourself and are too busy with your own tasks, hiring someone could help.

Even if you do have the time to manage your social media tasks by yourself, the next question you need to ask is, do you have enough experience? If you are looking to beef up your social media skills, then you should do it on your own. However, if your goal is to get your business to thrive, you should consider hiring a qualified expert. The techniques for how to manage each of the social media platforms are different from one to the next. An expert will know these differences and will be able to use them to your advantage.

If you are looking to learn how to properly manage social media, watching the work created by an expert will cut down your learning curve by a significant amount. Analyze what they are posting and pay attention to how they format your profiles in all of the platforms.

Another question to consider is whether or not the person you may hire has experience in your niche. Specialized niches are going to require that kind of knowledge. Many general niches don’t require specialized knowledge, so you have to be certain that this is an essential requirement.

Of course, when you decide to go forward with hiring someone, the next step is figuring out if they are qualified or not. You’ll want verifiable proof of their experience. At the very least, they should have blockbuster social media profiles with many shares, likes, follows, etc. If most of their social media profiles are company-based, ask them to show you their personal profiles. Most social media platforms allow multiple profiles.

Ask any potential candidates to give you their plan of execution. They may hesitate at first as they won’t want you to steal their plan and use it for your own purposes. But they should be able to come up with something that is high-level that gives you a comfort level that they know what they are doing.