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Here's what to ask when bringing a new SMM on board.
Interviews are stressful enough to turn even the coolest, calmest, and most collected of us into a jittery mess come interview day! But being prepared is the best way to counter those interview nerves and present yourself in the best light possible. Social media marketing managers have a tougher job than most.
Why? Well, a social media manager job can cover a broad range of roles with varying levels of seniority. Some social media manager roles are overseen by a social strategist, while other roles are more senior and require you to be the social media lead on a particular brand, managing the entire social department and junior staff.
Also, being a relatively modern role, social media manager jobs can vary drastically. Depending on the role of social media in their previous positions, some social media managers have had lots of training and exposure while others are fairly new to the game.
Either way, you’ll never know if you don’t attend the interview! We’ve compiled a list of the top social media manager interview questions and answers so you can keep the nerves at bay and head to your job interview feeling fresh, prepared, and confident in articulating your abilities. Keep reading to find out more.
Why is it So Important to Prepare for Your Social Media Manager Interview?
Not everyone finds it easy to “sell” themselves. It doesn’t seem quite natural, does it? But you’ll have to get used to it if you want to score an awesome social media manager job!
Preparing for your interview ensures that you:
It’s worth noting that no matter how much prep work you do, you can never be fully prepared for every single interview question. There will always be questions you’re not prepared for. But preparing answers to commonly asked questions and examples of your past experiences will put you in a great position to answer any off-the-cuff questions.
Top Questions and Answers for a Social Media Manager Interview
Your social media manager interview is looming so let’s get stuck into it! We’ve dug up the top social media interview questions and added a few less common ones so you can prep yourself for a range of interview scenarios. Here they are.
1. What are the Roles and Responsibilities of a Social Media Manager?
This should be an easy one. Although just because you are a social media manager doesn’t mean that the roles and responsibilities of the job will roll off your tongue instantly!
As we’ve already mentioned, the role of a social media manager can vary drastically, but this role typically involves end-to-end social media management, including:
There are many other responsibilities that a social media manager might need to take on as a part of their role. It really depends on the size of the company, the level of support they’re receiving, and the company’s marketing goals.
2. Introductory Questions
The interviewee will typically ask a social media manager quite a few introductory questions before testing the breadth of their experience and knowledge. These might include:
- Briefly describe yourself and your situation, where you reside, and what you’re looking for.
- Be honest, but try to avoid mentioning any sticky situations in your most recent role. You could say you’re looking for a challenge, a place to grow, different workplace culture, or even that you need a role closer to home.
- Here you should demonstrate that you’ve researched the company. Again, be honest, but if this is purely the first interview that you’ve got and you’re desperate for a job, just think about the positives of the role. Perhaps you’ve heard they have a great culture. Maybe the company has a great social media presence already and you like their creative approach. You might share similar values. Find those positives before you step into your interview.
- The hiring manager is trying to find out if you actually like and use social, so try to be passionate! These questions are more casual, so it’s ok to talk about your cat’s Instagram page or your obsession with TikTok. Just try to include the why in here, so the interviewee can establish that you’re always thinking strategically.
- For this one, try to select a best-in-class example instead of just picking an obscure artist’s Instagram account. Your interviewee will want to know which elements of the social media account you like, and why.
- Again, your interviewee wants to know that you live and breathe social media. Social media changes constantly, and with all the new features and algorithm updates it’s important to keep up. List all the ways you do that, including social media groups, websites, industry contacts, and any training courses.
Aside from these, ensure that you know your background inside and out. You won’t be expected to recall what you did five years ago in detail but if you can’t even remember what you did in your last role then that’s not a good look!
3. How Do You Measure Success on Social Media?
Measurement and attribution is (arguably) the most difficult part of being a social media manager, so this is an important one.
A social media manager would use various tools to measure success and check different metrics depending on your campaign objectives, such as:
4. What Are Some Tools a Social Media Manager Uses?
Here you don’t need to list every social media tool imaginable, but it’s nice to demonstrate your knowledge of a few tools and acknowledge that they have slightly different functions. List your experience with different tools, even if you just did a trial. If you haven’t used any tools before your interview we recommend signing up for some free trials. Some popular tools include:
- for light reporting and, of course, ad management.
- to assess web traffic, conversions, and lead generation efforts.
- , a high-performing tool for scheduling, collaborating, and reporting.
- a social listening tool for deeper audience engagement insights.
- which integrates all marketing channels such as email, SEO, and a brand’s CRM system into the one place.
Tools are especially important if you’re interviewing for a role at a social media agency, as there’s a lot more to keep on top of simultaneously. We can see below how Sked Social helps social media managers keep on top of their scheduling.
Even if you haven’t had specific experience with the social media tools the company uses, by mentioning a few popular tools you’re demonstrating that you’re flexible. You’re also showing them that you can easily learn to use new tools.
5. How Do You Measure Social Media Return on Investment (ROI)?
This is a tricky one. To measure your social media return on investment or ROI, you’ll need to go back to your social media objective. Figure out the value of each result, for instance, each lead, conversion, or email subscriber.
To calculate your return, you need to attribute a value to one metric – whatever your most important campaign metric was.
Say your ongoing objective is increasing leads. Once you have the number and value of your leads, measure the result of that objective against your original cost using the calculation ROI = [(return – investment)x100/investment].
Or, you can also use Google Analytics or the analytics of the social platform you’re using, such as Facebook Ads Manager, to check the ROI figure directly.
6. How Would You Drive More Traffic to a Blog Post?
Social media and content often go hand in hand, as social media is content in itself. You might be managing content yourself, managing writers, or working with a content team. Either way, at some point you’ll probably be expected to amplify your brand’s blogs on social media. Drive more traffic to blogs by:
7. How Would You Increase a Brand’s Reach on Social Media?
Yes, this is a very broad question, so try to think in terms of the business you’re interviewing for, if possible. You’ll want to demonstrate a good understanding of how to increase brand awareness and please various social media algorithms. Some tactics you could use would be:
8. How Would You Deal With a Negative Comment or Social Media Crisis on Social Media?
Most brands will already have community management guidelines, while others will have more of an informal arrangement in place. No matter the size of the business, it’s important to have a proper social media community management system in place. That means that as the business grows it will be able to manage complaints and queries efficiently.
9. How Would You Identify a Brand’s Target Audience?
There are several tactics you can use to identify and target a brand’s target audience, such as:
You should also mention that your audience on various social media networks may be different than their regular customer profile. For example, Instagram is female skewed, and TikTok tends to skew a little younger.
10. Tell Us Why You Would Use Paid Social Media Advertising
This is a complex question, as paid social media advertising can be used to achieve a range of objectives. Typically, social media is used to:
11. Which Social Media Platform Do You Have the Most/Least Experience With?
This question will demonstrate your knowledge of the different social media channels. A good social media manager should be able to work on any social media channel and have an understanding of them all, but naturally, some have more experience with some channels over others.
To begin with, you should have already checked the company’s social media platforms and assessed the social media platforms that seem to be their key channels. Yet keep in mind that they might be hiring a social media manager to expand their social media presence. Who knows – they might want you to use your experience to start their new TikTok account or boost their YouTube presence.
Explain your experience with all channels but especially the ones they seem to use the most, citing any specific campaigns or large activations you’ve worked on.
12. How Would You Set KPIs For an Upcoming Social Media Campaign?
The hiring manager is trying to establish your understanding of social media marketing strategy, specifically campaign goal setting and tracking. Explain, from beginning to end how you would go about this including:
13. Tell Us About Your Most Successful Campaign
Simply pick the campaign you’ve coordinated which was most successful. Explain:
If you’re worried you won’t remember all the details it’s nice to have a social media portfolio with a couple of campaign examples. This shows you’re prepared and can back up everything you’re saying with real results.
14. How Would You Recommend We Change Our Social Media Approach?
This is one you really do need to prep for! That said, a good social media specialist should be able to review a brand’s social media networks and identify a few tweaks straight off the bat. Some of these suggestions will be obvious while others might take time to identify. It's difficult to understand what a brand is doing well when you don’t know its objectives or have full access to its analytics. But every brand on social shares some similar objectives. You can mention things like:
Get creative and try to think outside the box – the hiring manager is probably looking for fresh ideas, after all. Just try to be sensitive with any criticism – the person sitting in front of you may be the person running the brand’s social media profiles!
15. The Campaign Project
These days it’s difficult to separate the “ok” social media managers from those who have the experience and initiative to keep up with social media trends, come up with innovative new social media strategies and constantly deliver results, month by month.
In the final stages of the interview process, the hiring manager might ask you to complete a task. This is great news, as it typically means that you’re only one step away from getting hired! On the other thing, it all comes down to how you approach the task. Here’s what to do:
A Few Final Tips
Finally, be sure to do your research before your social media manager interview. Be sure to:
Be sure to also practice with real-world social media tools. To keep on top of your social media marketing and execute a fabulous content calendar, you need to have a high-performance social media scheduling tool like Sked Social.
Sked Social is an all-in-one social media tool with powerful scheduling capabilities and advanced reporting functions which can help you optimize campaign performance in an ongoing capacity. Its reporting features will enable you to create automated reports for each campaign, so you can spot the trends that will help transform your campaigns and refine your social media strategy.
Get started by signing up for Sked’s 7-day trial. Our all-in-one social media scheduler allows you to automatically schedule posts including tweets, hashtags, carousels, Instagram Stories, videos, and more, saving you hours each week. It works with Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, your Facebook page, and plenty of other social networks!
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Why settle for a lackluster social media management tool when you could be using Sked Social? With unlimited collaborator access, streamlined approvals and advanced auto-post technology that lets you schedule to all major platforms, Sked Social offers everything you need.
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