Do you think you need someone to do your Social Media Marketing? Before you decide you should ask yourself these Questions

WHY Should You Hire?

Has your social media marketing been down lately? It's definitely possible that you are spending too little time social sites. Never underestimate these sites, they potentially bring in lots of traffic. In fact, you can potentially get more traffic from it than the search engines, especially when it goes viral. The thing is, the more time you devout in social media -- granted that you do the right things -- the more people will be conscious about your products and your services. Say what you will, no matter how good your product may be, without advertising and marketing, it's not gonna get sold. So, how is your traffic coming from these sites? Almost Zero? Perhaps it's time you hire someone to do this for you.

WHEN Should You Hire?

Because sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google Plus, etc. give anyone a platform to say what they think, it’s important to remember that every company has a social media marketing presence. As such, the “tipping point” for hiring staff for social media marketing may be when you’re building your company brand, or when maintaining your social media strategy becomes too much for your current staff to handle. In fact, according to some experts, you should consider hiring when you don’t have enough in-house talent with a background in digital strategy.

Still, be cautions, anyone who “takes the wheel” of your company's online presence is essentially speaking on behalf of your organization, so their technical knowledge has to be balanced with a mature leader’s perspective.

“The right person to lead this initiative within a company must have a strong understanding of the business and its operations,” he says. “This includes the internal political landscape -- as well as a finger on the pulse of the constantly evolving external market.”

WHO Should You Hire?

What qualities should you look for when hiring a social media specialist to implement your social media strategy? Just because someone is a “digital native” does not make them uniquely qualified to manage your online branding. Avoid the mistake of allowing the person who knows the least about your organization to handle potentially the most powerful communication tool you have.

Second, be wary of the so-called “experts.” Anyone who claims to be a social media expert should be treated with at least a little skepticism. This medium is simply evolving too quickly. If you’re evaluating a candidate, take a look at their social media presence. How many followers do they have? Are they engaged and involved? How do they respond to criticism? The reality of business is that very few people tweet -- for example -- just to say ‘I love you,' so responding to negative comments in a professional manner is critical.

These questions are especially important as many businesses find that their company brand has a tendency to get folded into employees’ “personal” brands over time.
I certainly have two personas online, the ‘Monster for Employers’ presence as well as my own online presence. Both voices, are authentically me. In other words, your social media officer should know how to speak genuinely and appropriately, in any online setting.

HOW Should You Measure Success?

While social media strategies are as unique to a business as its logo, there are two benchmarks you can use to evaluate success, beginning with tangible results.
Start with how many followers are you building. If you set a goal to increase Facebook “likes” or Twitter followers by 10% over a three-month period, did your team hit the mark?

Beyond volume, it’s also important to measure the engagement of your followers. One way to monitor this is to recount your retweets and your post comments. (Note: Don’t just count though -- respond!)

Additionally, there’s another way to measure your social media team’s performance that is equally important -- the ability to drive business results from experimental stages to full-scale implementation.

The performance of a social media officer should be based on the ability to take a wide range of innovation concepts from early stage to a narrow set of initiatives in production, contributing to business operations, thus impacting revenue. Social media isn’t just about a short-term sales boosts. It’s about putting people in place who can build relationships for the long-term.

How is your Social Media Presence fairing so far? I'd like to hear your them.