10 Tips for Hiring a Remote Social Media Pro

As a business owner, you might think the world of social media with its likes, shares, comments, tweets and pins are is far removed from your firm’s core activities. Though it can sometimes seem trivial, Social Media is a powerful tool for engaging your target customers. Even better, it’s a lot more flexible, not to mention cheaper, than traditional forms of marketing. The only problem – building a presence on Social Media platforms takes time, energy and experience. That’s why “Social Media Marketing Specialist” is an ever more popular job title and one that can be found in companies across a wide range of industries.

While hiring  a Social Media Marketing officer for your company is the most direct way to get in the SMM game, it can be an expensive proposition. As any employee, your SMM specialist will need the support of admin staff, as well as a physical workspace. That doesn’t even take into account the expense of interviewing candidates, or the benefits package that your new hire will receive.

The alternative, hiring a Virtual Assistant to help you establish a presence on Social Media, can make a lot of sense when it comes to saving money without lowering your expectations for deliverables. But what is a Virtual Assistant in the context of SMM?

A Social Media Virtual Assistant is someone who can streamline systems for maintaining your social media presence, help you develop  this presence on key social media networks, reach and engage your target audience, and generate leads through Social Media.

We have 10 tips for you to hire the best Social Media Virtual Assistant out there:

1. Hire a person who is passionate about the Social Media.

Ask your prospective remote employee what motivates him or her while working on different projects. A professional will answer that the best reward is a high engagement rate and a healthy number of generated leads.

2. An expert is a person who has made mistakes.

Ask what your prospective Social Media Assistant has learned from painful experience. Candidates without specific examples aren’t credible.

3. Find someone with a holistic view and a plan.

The reason you’re looking for a SMM Virtual Assistant is to find someone who can develop your presence on Social Media. That means any good candidate for the job should be able to recommend what social networks you need to focus on to generate the most leads or increase the reach of the target audience.

4. Make sure to check yourSocial Media Virtual Assistant’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) knowledge.

This is one of the main techniques for driving traffic to your website or social media accounts organically. Google’s web crawlers look for keywords to know if a given page will be relevant to a given query. Knowing what words are most likely to be used gives you a powerful advantage in the battle for views and clicks.

5. Check your Candidates Written and Spoken English.

Well-written titles, captions and descriptions can make a massive difference in the success of and advertising campaign.

6. Ask Candidates what data analysis tools they use.

By using a CRM platform, a Social Media Assistant can tag all the links he shares on any Social Network to get insight into what content works for sales purposes.

7. Hire a Photoshop expert.

Being able to create high quality and unique visual assets  will help your Remote Social Marketing Assistant share fresh content with your target audience. The more “shares” or “likes” an item gets, the better.  Great visuals help you stand out from the crowd.

8. We’ve heard that “putting all your eggs in one basket” is, in general, a bad idea.

The same is true when it comes to Social Media lead generation. Your future assistant should be planning to reach out to your target audience on a range of platforms, not get Twitter or Instagram.

9. Ask about your candidates’ experience handling a reputation crisis.

Find out what steps your Social Media Assistant would take to resolve the situation. You shouldn’t hire a person who will h panic if and online reputation crisis appears.

10. Ask about your  remote employee’s primary.

If the prospective Social Media Assistant starts talking about attracting a number of followers, that’s a good sign this person isn’t for you. A small, but engaged audience offers you much more value than a huge number of followers from outside your market area.

We hope these tips will help you to hire a professional Social Marketing Virtual Assistant.