Implementing A Small Business Social Media Strategy: Hiring A Social Media Manager

As your online presence develops, you may find that you no longer have adequate time (or energy) to devote to social media. If you are fortunate enough to have created vibrant and active social media profiles for your business, maintaining them could become a full-time job. You may have to hire a manager if your social media activity is: 

• Taking up more than two to three hours of your work day
• Preventing you from performing your other duties
• A distraction that is affecting your productivity
• No longer fun 

Another reason to hire a social media manager is if your business has taken off to the point where your time is more valuable than the costs associated with hiring an employee or freelancer. If you decide it’s time to hire a social media manager, keep in mind that person can be hired on either a part-time or full-time basis in accordance with your needs.

A social media manager is responsible for supervising your day-to-day social media activities while managing your brand’s reputation and client relationships. Your manager’s duties will likely be very specific to your situation. A social media manager’s job might be to update accounts, add posts and images, respond to users’ comments, tweets and other interactions, respond to complaints, and collect data and analyze results to figure out where social media efforts should be concentrated to increase your return on investment. The job might also include spearheading a promotion or organizing a contest. The specific role your social manager takes will depend on your needs and may change as your business grows.

The ideal candidate is someone who is both knowledgeable and passionate about social media. In addition, a social media manager should have: 

• Strong writing and editing skills
• A background in customer service, sales and/or marketing
• The ability to problem-solve
• Excellent listening skills 

Finding a Social Media Manager
There are a number of online venues to find someone to manage your social media activities. Ironically, some of the best places to look are social media sites. You can post the job on LinkedIn, for example, by entering “social media manager” in the People search box. You will be able to sort the results by Relevance, Relationship, Relationship + Recommendations, Connections or Keywords. Similarly you can post the job on Twitter using hashtags like #socialmedia and #jobs. Other useful sites include Mashable, Mediabistro and elance.

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