Social Media Executive Interview Preparation Guide

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Talk about why the strategy inspired you but, more importantly, also detail how you would love to create an original strategy of the same caliber. Explain how you would do this and implement it in the context of the job you’re interviewing for.

It’s ok to praise the competitors here if they are genuinely doing something good. Don’t go overboard and make it seem like you’d rather work for these competitors but don’t be afraid to be honest if you think they have a strategy that the company you’re interviewing for could learn from. Always be sure to explain why what they are doing is working (or not working). Mention specific social media campaigns if you can.

There's no one right answer to this. The best answer will come from doing your homework. Research your potential employer's current activities across all channels. Then, produce a plan, with action items and metrics for success.

Show that you know about the social media efforts of major brands. Glamour Magazine, for instance, is taking advantage of Google Hangouts to engage their fans in ways that print cannot. This Hangout campaign by Glamour features staff, online personalities, and brands, while cleverly and subtly advertising products.

This is another question where there is no right answer. Be prepared to explain why you picked your sites though. If you don’t follow any blogs, try browsing a few so you’ll at least be prepared for this question.

The social media world can be a very dynamic and opinionated place, meaning that there are plenty of opportunities for something to go wrong. Your potential boss wants to know that you can keep cool in these situations and deal with it accordingly.

Make sure you state that you would stay calm and inform the correct parties if necessary – they want to know that you wouldn’t crumble under the pressure! So maybe bring up a previous occasion when something went wrong for you and how you resolved it – giving an example can be a brilliant way of proving you’ve got what it takes.

Always use hashtags and mentions! Doing this will mean more people see your tweets and retweet. Some of these people might have big followings or clout that will benefit your company. Twitter is a great tool for conversing with customers so make sure to reply to their tweets as much as you can. Use hashtags to connect the conversation with other conversations in related topics.

Because EdgeRank is complicated, this question serves as a litmus test in social-media job interviews.

If the expert answers ‘no’, that may be OK. Follow up with something like ‘Oh, you’re using Posterous instead?’. If they look at you blankly, end the meeting there. No sense wasting your time.

If the expert answers ‘yes’, get the address and go look. If they’ve been blogging for less than 2-3 years, and there’s no explanation like “I had to move my blog”, again, end the meeting.

Any social media expert has been somehow participating in the conversation for a long time.

Use tools like the Conversion Measurement tool on Facebook and Optimized CPM. Your website will also often have analytics used to measure social media ROI. Lastly, some of the platforms themselves such as LinkedIn have their own analytics. The fundamental measures are the same as in other areas of marketing: clicks, likes, shares, purchases, change in attitude, etc.

This is probably one of the first questions many social media employers will ask – they want to know that you’ve got passion and commitment to the industry, and asking you what attracted you to social media can be a brilliant way of working it out.

A good answer would be to state that it’s an up and coming industry with plenty of room to progress and enhance your skills. This shows that you’re in it for the long haul and you’re a candidate that thrives under pressure – they want someone who will actively seek out ways to improve themselves.

“It doesn’t”. Slap them and tell ’em that’s from Ian.

“It builds links”. That’s half the answer.

“It builds relationships that turn into links later”. HIRE THEM NOW.

SEO is a desireable skill for social media marketers and marketers in general since companies always want their content to rank as high as possible on a Google search. Explain how social media helps make this happen by boosting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs…you should know what these are!), making content more share-worthy and perhaps even viral, stressing keywords, and by simply increasing the amount of content attached to a brand. Talk about how you always factor SEO into any social media strategy and detail exactly how you did it in the past.

Social media managers need to know how to define success for social media campaigns. Do you utilize social media campaign tools such as Klout? How do you use KPIs and analytics to prove the success of your campaigns? Need to add some tools to your kit? Check out this post.

“Oh, shut up”. Perfectly OK, especially if the expert turns purple for a moment first. They’re just sick of hearing this question, which means they’ve been around the block a few times.

“It’s complicated, but here’s a high-level view…”. Nice!!!

“I track clicks from Twitter”. Nope, sorry.

The answer for this questions proves you have spent time researching the company’s current social media campaigns, and have taken the time to find workable solutions for any problems with the current campaign.

If you’re applying for a social media job, then your prospective employer will probably want to see/hear about what you’ve done in the past. They’ll want to see how you can use social media on a commercial level – so this is a brilliant chance for you to showcase your talents.

A great way to tackle this question would be to tell them about a project you’ve ran or assisted with and talk about the success of this. Remember to focus on stats in particular – if you increased the engagement of your social media platform, make sure you state by how much. You want to wow your potential employer by your past achievements, so make sure you’ve got some stats at the ready.

Groups tend to have a better reach and are therefore a more worthy place for sharing content. They also offer an excellent space for engaging with customers and other businesses, stresing keywords, and increasing interest in your company. A LinkedIn Page is where people go when they are already interested in the company. Thus, it should be informative above all else. Pages also function as a feed for putting out content and have at least a bit of SEO value.

Every business and organization is not the same, so a one-size-fits-all social media strategy is generally a bad idea. If you’re in non-profit, you might want to look for a social media professional with experience in that sector. If you operate in a regulated industry such as pharmaceutical, tobacco, alcohol, finance, insurance, or a host of others….it would be a good idea to find a professional who has significant experience in your industry and understands any limitations or restrictions.

Facebook EdgeRank is the algorithm Facebook uses to determine where posts show up in a user’s newsfeed. It is important every Facebook post has the highest EdgeRank possible. How can you use affinity, user interactions, and timeliness to increase a post’s EdgeRank?

“I hate writing”. Cough.

“Oh, I try to but I don’t have much time”. Cough. Cough.

“Every day”. A winner!

Social media engagement doesn’t end when you publish your Facebook page or launch your Twitter account. Heck…creating those channel profiles is often the easiest part of the process. The community engagement/management process that follows is the more difficult (and more expensive) element. It’s important that you know how your social media professional approaches community management and what strategies and tactics they will use to interact with the members of your community (a.k.a your customers, members, employees, etc…)

☛ What are you passionate about?
☛ How would you add value to our social media department?
☛ Which social media experts or influencers do you follow?
☛ How would you handle a crisis on social media?
☛ What are some of best practices on social media?
☛ Which social media brand strategy has inspired you? Why?
☛ What innovative things are our competitors doing on social media?

How will the candidate use social media for the company? Has the candidate reviewed the company’s current social media presence and formed an opinion?

☛ For our business, would Twitter or Facebook be more effective?
☛ Why would we want to continue using MySpace?
☛ Why should we use social media?
☛ What would be the first thing you would do if hired for this position? What would your goal be for the first month? The first year?
☛ Would you use Facebook Like or Facebook Recommend on our site?
☛ What social sites should our company have a presence on?
☛ How would you integrate social media into our site? What buttons or widgets would you recommend?
☛ What percentage of our referral traffic would you think our site should get from social media sites?
☛ Give our company a grade on our current social media efforts.
☛ How would a social check in site benefit our business?
☛ What tabs should we have on our company Facebook page? Which one should be default?
☛ How do you define social media reach? What is the current social media reach our of our company?
☛ What are 5 things you would recommend to us to do immediately in the social space?

In this section of the interview, you will learn how involved the candidate is in the industry. Is he/she looking for a job or a career?

☛ What is Web 2.0?
☛ What does Web 3.0 look like?
☛ What’s the “next big thing?”
☛ What is the difference between social media and social networking?
☛ What do you think of social media consultants?
☛ What’s the scariest part of social media?
☛ What’s the most exciting part of social media?
☛ What social media blogs do you read? What research do you follow?
☛ Who’s your favorite social media expert?