Here are some Social Media Marketing (SMM) questions you may get asked and some tips on how to tackle them.
1. What online communities have you managed in the past?
Ans: Here, you can mention how big the accounts you managed were, the number of followers, the strategy you followed, etc. Not enough big brand experience? No problem, you may also talk about your personal social networks but make sure they are job seeking friendly.
2. Which social media channels do you recommend for our business?
Ans: Make sure you study the business you’re interviewing with, think about their target audience, industry they work in and possible strategies they could follow and then compare it to what each social network offers. You’ll have no problem to tackle this question and other similar ones if you have done your homework and informed yourself about the business/brand beforehand.
3. What do you think should be the goals of our Facebook/Google+/Twitter account?
Ans: As with the previous question, this answer depends on each company and on the specific needs they have. Again, you should investigate what they have done in the past on their social networks and also what they could improve. Hint: Make sure to share reachable and measurable goals.
4. What strategies would you implement for helping generating leads or conversions?
Ans: Share the facts! Talk about successful strategies you have used in other projects. You may also describe strategies you think could be useful to their company in particular.
5. How can social media help create value for SEO?
Ans: SEO skills are important to have when you are working with social media. Talk about your SEO strategies, the tools you use and the way you measure and analyse the results. Google Analytics is a must here. Also, provide examples and be prepared to be tested by the recruiter.
6. What social media tools do you use?
Ans: Here you will need to drop some names. It’s important you know how to use one or more Social Media Management platforms such as HootSuite, SproutSocial or TweetDeck. Be prepared to explain why you use them and what features you like from one or the other.
7. What are relevant metrics for tracking social media success?
Ans: Engagement, brand reach and lead generation is what helps show the ROI of social media to a business, these measurements show the results of your job. Show the interviewer that you are an expert analysing the metrics and have solutions to improve them.
8. How would you deal with negative comments or a brand reputation crisis?
Ans: Show the hiring manager that you are able to react quickly and face a crisis with self-confidence and efficiency. You may use examples of famous brand reputation crises to tell what you think was done well and what not.
9. Can you describe your biggest social media failure?
Ans: Everybody makes mistakes; it’s not a big deal. Be completely honest about this and focus on what you learned from your bad experiences. Tell your negative stories, too. Also, mention how you corrected it and the changes you made to avoid it from happening again in the future.
10. How do you stay updated with the latest social trends?
Ans: If you are a social networking enthusiast, you surely follow some blogs and influencers. Let the recruiter know you are always up to date and share your favourites!
11. How does success in social media look like for you?
Ans: Try to find out what their expectations are so you are aligned from the very beginning.
12. Do you have an editorial calendar? How do you schedule posts/tweets?
Ans: Find out how other companies organize their content in social media. This is a good indicator of how they plan ahead.
13. How is the business’ presence on social media nowadays?
Ans: Show interest on which social media channels of companies are using and their strategy for each.
14. What social media campaigns have you produced and/or managed? Tell me about them.
Ans: Social media employers often stress conversation, storytelling, and engagement. Give examples of how you have conversed with clients and consumers, created interesting stories, and increased measures of engagement such as clicks, likes, reach, etc. Any campaign you mention should have these three elements at the very least. Be sure to save dashboards and results from your campaigns so you can show them off later!
15. Which social media platforms are you best at using and why?
Ans: When you answer this question, spend the most time talking about the platform you’re most skilled with and explain why this is the case. However, you should mention all the major platforms and details their strengths. Talk about how Twitter is best for conversations, Facebook is great for advertising, LinkedIn is best for recruiting and sharing career-related articles, and how Google+ is an underrated tool that is actually valuable for creating a social media community.
16. How much SEO knowledge and experience do you have?
Ans: SEO is a desirable 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, 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.
17. What is a limitation you have experienced on a social media platform? How did you overcome this?
Ans: You could just answer this by saying that you used a different platform to cover the shortcomings of the other. This isn’t a bad answer. In fact, it can be part of a good answer. However, you should definitely know how to overcome or at least deal with limitations on social media platforms. For example, Facebook has severe limitations when it comes to organic (non-paid) reach. One way to overcome this without paying on Facebook is to use email marketing and subscription-based methods to gently guide people to the page with links and suggestions. If you have your own awesome anecdote already, that’s even better!
18. What are your favorite social media blogs?
Ans: 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.
19. How active are you on social media and how many people are you connected with?
Ans: You don’t need to have as many followers as Shakira or be like Lady Gaga to impress your employer. However, you’re following or at least your activity on social media channels should reflect your passion for it and act as a sample of your overall communication skills.
20. Which social media experts and/or influencers do you follow?
Ans: You should be fine on this one as long as you have something to say. Interviewer are not likely to judge your decisions.
21. What kinds of skills/qualities do you think you need to possess to be a community manager?
Ans: A great community manager should be proficient in most of the social media platforms and social media management tools. He/she should have unrivalled communications skills and be likeable and organized. Employers also value a background in analytics even if those analytics were not directly related to social media.
22. How would you handle a social media crisis?
Ans: Make sure to respond promptly. The longer you take, the bigger the blunder looks to the consumer. Make sure any apology you give is honest and sincere. Otherwise, followers were rip it apart even more. Respond on all channels as well even if the incident only occurred on one.
23. Are there any up-and-coming social media platforms we should watch out for?
Ans: This one is up to you. However, people tend to talk about Pinterest. It isn’t nearly as big as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, but it is prominent and on the rise. You may have already noticed the “Pin It” share button appear on articles or seen the Pinterest icon on YouTube videos. Vine is another one that has exploded lately. If your interviewer says these are too mainstream/not up-and-coming enough, try bringing up more budding platforms like Impossible.
24. What is your opinion on Google+? How should it be used in social media strategy?
Ans: Don’t dismiss Google+ even if it isn’t your favorite part of social media strategy. Even if the people interviewing you don’t perceive it as being valuable compared to Facebook and Twitter, they don’t want to work with someone who wouldn’t be open to integrating it into an overall strategy. Explain how Google+ is a great resource for community building since it is a heavily curated and moderated community. Having a thriving community means people are talking more about your company and sharing more content. It also increases SEO
which you already know is a supplementary part of social media marketing.
25. What are some of the best practices on Twitter?
Ans: 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.
26. Which social media brand strategy has inspired you lately and why?
Ans: Talk about why the strategy inspired you but, more importantly, also detail how you would love to create an original strategy of the same calibre. Explain how you would do this and implement it in the context of the job you’re interviewing for.
27. What are our competitors doing on social media?
Ans: 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.
28. What are the benefits of a LinkedIn group vs. LinkedIn page?
Ans: 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, stressing 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.
29. How could you leverage YouTube in order to promote our brand and increase engagement?
Ans: People love to see original video content that is fun and sharable. It shouldn’t be so obviously promotional from the start. People should want to share it simply because it is amazing! This video content ultimately connects to all the other social media platforms you are working with and benefits strategy and marketing as a whole. It might even go viral.