Interviewing for a Social Media Manager can be challenging. To better understand what type of person they are and how qualified they may or may not be, there is a long list of questions to ask while in the interview process. By knowing what you should ask during an interview, you have more information about the candidate that will help make your decision on whether or not they are a good fit.

So, what does a Social Media Manager do? Social Media Managers are responsible for creating and executing a social media strategy that will grow the popularity of their company. They also handle all interactions with customers, promote content from other sources, monitor analytics to see what is working best on different platforms, and more.

In this article, we go over 60 questions that you should ask during an interview for Social Media Manager positions so you can better understand what type of person they are and if they have enough experience to be qualified for your company’s needs. Scroll down and explore each question!

Social Media Manager Interview Questions

We compiled a list of 60 perfect questions to ask when interviewing for a Social Media Manager role. This should help you understand what skills and qualities the job requires so that you can find candidates who will be strong in those areas.

1. What industries have you represented on social media in the past?

This question will help you understand the candidate’s experience in this area. Different industries have different social media needs. This will help you identify if the candidate is a good fit for your company.

2. How many years of social media management experience do you have?

This will vary depending on the person’s background. For example, someone with a journalism or marketing degree may be able to answer this question easily while someone who has been in advertising but never managed social media would not know how much time they’ve spent managing it.

3. Describe any social media management experience you’ve held.

This question will help you understand the candidate’s previous social media management experience. What skills or qualities do they have? Do they coordinate with other departments in-house for best results?

4. What online communities have you managed in the past?

This question will help you understand what social media platforms the candidate has experience using, and if they are really up to date with current trends.

5. What is your understanding of a social media platform?

This question will start them on the topic by asking how well they know it, but also whether or not their definition matches yours so that there aren’t any surprises.

6. What is your definition of a social media platform?

This question will help you get the same understanding as above. You’ll also want to ask what they are especially interested in so that you can tailor their questions accordingly.

7. What do you think of the internet? What are your feelings on how it will change in the future?

This question is designed to generate conversation about social media’s role and our expectations for its development. You want to know if they have an opinion, but more importantly, their reasoning behind that opinion.

8. What social networks are you most active on? Which ones do you enjoy engaging with the most?

The goal here is really just finding out if someone has the knowledge and experience to do social media, not which networks they might prefer.

9. What is your opinion of the latest changes from Facebook?

As I’m sure everyone knows by now, there were some major updates to Facebook that changed what we see when we log into our account and access our news feed. They are testing these out before rolling them out more broadly which leaves many people feeling unsettled as uncertain about their future posts being seen because they’re no longer at the top of an algorithm-based.

10. What do you feel Social Media managers need in order to be successful?

This is another question that depends on a person’s experience level with each platform but usually they’ll want some kind of knowledge about how each social press operates, what’s best practices/rules are (for example: don’t share racist posts) as well as an understanding of other features such as hashtags and live video streams from that particular site.

11. What are some of the most common social media platforms?

LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are a few examples. It’s important to know what each platform is used for in order to optimize your marketing efforts accordingly. For example, LinkedIn could be best utilized as an opportunity to land that next job or strategic hire; Facebook could be better suited if you want to connect with potential customers who may have liked your page before they purchased; while Instagram would likely work best when trying to reach out younger audiences who might use it more frequently than other sites.

Social Media Strategy Questions

12. What’s the benefit of having a social media strategy?

A coherent social media plan can help with brand awareness, lead generation, customer service support, growth hacking techniques, and much more! The interviewee needs to have some knowledge about what each one does so he or she has examples ready when explaining their strengths in this area.

13. What do your social media strategies depend on?

Each company has different needs to consider when developing a social strategy which means there is no one-size-fits-all solution for every business out there. In order to identify what will work best for them we start by assessing where they’re at right now, how big their budget is, who their target audience is among other things like industry trends and competitor reports.

14. Do you feel it’s important to have a separate strategy for each social media platform? Why?

This question is also tricky because social media is constantly changing and evolving. There are different platforms that I use differently so it’s hard to say if one strategy would work the same way for all of them or not.

15. What is your process for building social media platforms from scratch?

This question can be tricky because a lot of people might have different opinions on this. Generally, an experienced Social Media Manager will start by assessing the company’s current social media content and use that to determine what kind of tone they should go for in their posts – whether it be funny or serious or anything else.

Leveraging that insight, they’ll go out to find content that aligns with the company’s goals and spread it across social media. They might also look for popular hashtags or topics in order to get their company trending on those subjects, which could result in increased engagement levels.

16. Do you feel like there is more pressure with social media than other aspects of communication? Why?

Social Media has had an incredible impact on society over the past decade so yes, there is definitely more pressure when posting things online nowadays.

You’re always thinking about how your post will get perceived as well as who could potentially see it which means you need to think through everything before pushing “Publish”.

An experienced Social Media Manager should answer ‘Yes”, this shows that they are very conscious of the impact social media can have on the company.

17. Which social media channels do you recommend for our business and why?

This question will bring the interviewee to a specific point and help you decide if they are knowledgeable about social media marketing. Has the candidate done the research on your company ahead of time?

18. What is your social media strategy? What are the best practices for our business?

This question will help you understand how they plan to properly advise and support your company. You also want to know if it’s something they have experience with or not.

19. Which social media channels are the most effective, and why?

This question will help you find out how knowledgeable the interviewee is in social media channels.

FYI: The most effective social media channels are the ones that your audience is using. For example, if you’re an event company and all of your clients use Facebook then it’s likely a good choice for marketing efforts because they will see them more often than not.

20. How often should posts be made and what type of content is best?

This will tell you how much they know about the frequency of posting on social media, as well as the appropriate types of content to post for your company.

21. How often do you post on social media per day?

Ideally, the Social Media Manager should publish a piece of content each day on various platforms. It’s best to mix up the type of content you’re posting so that your followers can have a well-rounded experience.

FYI: The Social Media Manager should schedule posts even on weekends, holidays, and vacations. It’s important to maintain a social media presence as the internet is an ever-changing landscape that evolves daily with new trends and technologies. It can be exhausting but it pays off in the end when you see your following grow steadily over time or know-how often someone visits your site because of posts they saw on Facebook earlier this year!

22. How do you know when it is appropriate to post on social media?

The right time varies based on what platform(s) they are managing (or all of them), but in general, there should be an understanding of how often people review their various feeds and adjust accordingly.

23. What kind of posts seem most successful in terms of engagement?

It varies from industry to industry — Some industries want a mix of posts that are timely, informative, and playful. Other industries might not mind if all the content is more on the serious side because it’s expected or in line with their brand.

24. What are some more advanced ways in which you can increase a brand’s presence on social media?

This question will show how much experience the interviewee has and also what they are capable of. I would ask them to think about how we can use social media tools like insights, video marketing or advertising platforms to create more exposure for our brand.

25. What is your strategy for working with influencers?

There’s a lot that goes into this question because it’ll depend on many different factors such as budget, industry type, target audience size, product/service offerings, and so forth. For example, if you’re looking at partnering with an Instagram influencer who promotes health supplements then there could be some limitations with geographical restrictions depending on where your company does business whereas somebody else might have no issue reaching out to someone in another country which gives us a bigger potential reach than just locally.

Social Media Campaign & Customer Engagements Questions

26. Describe a campaign you’ve led in the past. What went well and what did you identify as needing improvement?

This question hones in on the interviewee’s leadership skills. What did they do well? What could have been improved upon?

27. What is your process for crafting a social media campaign? What format do you typically use, e.g., PowerPoint or Word document?

This set of questions helps determine how well versed the candidate is in their field – if they have been trained on what workflow best fits them.

28. How would you integrate social media into our customer service strategy?

You want someone who understands that this isn’t just content creation but also monitoring what people say online. This person should be able to advise on effective strategies because it’s all about building relationships with customers as quickly as possible when there’s an issue (think, “when did you last talk to a customer?”)

29. How do you find new social media accounts to follow and engage with?

This question will help you see how creative the person is in finding new accounts. It might also show you if they have a good sense of who their audience is (i.e., what type of social media account do they follow and engage with?)

30. How would you handle a situation where someone says something offensive about us on one of our social media posts?

You may be screening a lot of candidates who don’t seem like ideal fits, so this interview question just helps weed out those people without any care or thought. It’ll give them an idea as well since many times they might think that deleting comments solves everything but it doesn’t really work in these situations either.

31. How would you use social media for product promotion or advertising in our organization?

This can take the form of contests, content sharing, and word-of-mouth marketing. You want someone who understands how this is effective online but also that it needs to be backed up by traditional offline strategies such as email campaigns and ads on TV.

32. What do your customers care about most when they visit your social media profiles/pages? What are the three types of messages these audiences respond best to?

The answer here will indicate whether the candidate has researched their audience well enough – often startups make mistakes assuming all consumers behave similarly across different industries. Knowing what type of message resonates best with your customer is key, and the three types of messages are: informative (i.e. what), persuasive (i.e., why buy from us), or promotional.

33. Why is it important to cultivate a community on social media platforms?

This question will explore the interviewee’s knowledge about why a community is important to social media. They need to know how it can help generate leads, increase sales, and provide customer service support.

FYI: Having a social media presence is important because it gives the company one more way to interact with potential and existing clients. It’s also likely that they will not be able to handle all of their customer services through phone or email, so having the ability to answer questions in real-time about products from this platform can help them grow and succeed.

34. How do you balance posting on social media?

When I’m working with clients we typically use something called “schedule-spreading”. The idea of scheduling spreading is that you post at different times throughout the day so people can see what’s going on now or later depending on their time zone/what part of the world they live in. Some businesses will even split posts into regional groups where one region might get content during morning hours while the other region might get content during evening hours.

One thing I have found is that it’s important to stay on top of what your target market likes and dislikes so you can tailor posts to them in an effective manner.

35. How do social media and customer service work together?

This question will explore the interviewee’s understanding of how social media and customer service work together. Essentially, this is asking what they do when things go wrong on social media. They need to be able to give an example of a time where it happened for them in order to answer correctly.

FYI: Social media takes up plenty of employees’ time because there are always posts being written, comments being made, ads that need attention, etc.; so if something goes wrong with one part of their account or content stream then those people are usually tapped out and having no way to address all other problems at hand. Therefore, another employee needs to jump in and fix whatever issue has arisen before more damage can occur.

36. What are your thoughts on social media monitoring?

Monitoring is important because you want to know what people are saying and how close their opinion is to the company’s stance. Monitoring also helps with customer service; this question will give insight into whether they have a view of monitoring that aligns with yours or if there needs to be some change.

Social Media Content Creation Strategy Questions

37. How do you develop content for social media?

The candidate should know that there’s a process to developing content which can be summarised as follows: brainstorming ideas, identifying an audience, researching data on those audiences’ location/demographics, determining messaging strategy based on their interests & needs, creating visuals, and deciding if they’re going to post it live or schedule it ahead of time

38. What types of content do you create?

As a social media manager, the candidate should be able to identify at least two types of content they would typically produce: visual (i.e., images) or text-based (blog posts). This question also helps find out their strengths in regards to creativity.

39. How do you write compelling content for an industry you’re unfamiliar with?

The best answer to this question is not asking for examples of what content you should create, but instead would be how do they find out about and research their industry enough so that there are few topics left unknown. Sometimes people will say “I’ll just ask them” or some other way around the issue, which can work in a pinch; however it’s always better to have more knowledge on your side than less. When someone has done their due diligence into an industry beforehand then it makes it easier to write compelling content because they’re able to speak with authority when discussing any topic related thereto.

40. What do you think is the most effective type of content for generating engagement?

Another way to ask this would be “what generates more views on your posts?” This can help find out if someone has knowledge in terms of which types generate more shares or likes – it also lets them share their thoughts about topics that have worked well.

41. Do you follow any specific guidelines when choosing visual content?

This question helps to find out if someone is knowledgeable about what types of visuals work and why. Choosing the right type can be important with different messages, so it’s helpful for managers to have a good understanding of this in order to guide their team members appropriately.

42. Would you say storytelling strategically aligns well with businesses’ objectives?

Generally, Yes – storytelling can be used as a way to speak directly to your customer and create a strong emotional connection. It also provides an opportunity for consumers to feel like they’re inside the story, making it more personal.

The key is not only thinking about telling stories – but being able to show them in a compelling manner as well.

Social Media Tooling Questions

43. What is the best social media management software?

There are many different types of tools out there, but two good ones are Hootsuite and Buffer. These both allow you to schedule posts for a variety of accounts simultaneously which makes things much easier when running multiple pages or profiles at once. They also provide analytics data – such as how many people saw your post or liked/commented on it – which helps give insight into what works well with specific audiences, and where they’re most engaged around certain topics.

44. What platforms do you use to manage social media?

This question helps a company understand the experience level of the candidate, and whether they have knowledge of what is currently trending in social media management.

45. What kind of tools do you use for scheduling?

Hootsuite is one tool I’ve used in the past but it may not be as effective now because it’s got an algorithm-based feed too so there’s no guarantee your post will show up at all. When Facebook made changes to its algorithm earlier this year a lot of my previously scheduled posts didn’t even go live until about two weeks later which really messed up my posting schedule significantly. It was such a problem that I had to start using another program called Hastybook just to keep up with the posts.

46. Do you have experience with scheduling social media posts? What software do you use for this task?

This is an important interview question as it will highlight whether the person has previous knowledge about how social media management works – by asking if they know what type of software/applications were used and when they first started using them.

What goals should we set for each of our social media accounts, and what does success look like?

This interview question goes into the details of what a social media manager should be doing. It’s important to set goals, so people know how they are expected to perform and their success will show whether or not they’re meeting these expectations.

47. Which social media tools are you using right now?

There are many different social media tools out there; this question gives you an idea of what the candidate is familiar with and whether they would be a good fit.

48. What are your thoughts on social media automation?

Automation is one of the most popular topics in social media; this question gives insight into what their stance is when it comes to using bots or other tools that can automate some of these tasks, which could save time for them or the company.

49. What do you think about Facebook live videos as a marketing tool?

Candidates should have a viewpoint on this topic – it shows that they’ve given thought to social media before coming into the interview. The interviewer may ask for their opinion if there isn’t one already provided by the application materials. Candidates who have experience with Facebook Live can share how it has been used successfully at other organizations for increased engagement and conversions when paired with video ads.”

50. What do you think are the most effective social media tools for increasing customer acquisition?

In order to increase customer acquisitions, one of our main goals is to help potential customers identify why they should purchase from us rather than a competitor and then figure out how we can best communicate that value proposition. There are a number of different ways in which this could be done but some examples might include building an email list where people subscribe willingly in exchange for exclusive discounts or offers, creating compelling blog content that’s regularly pushed out on social channels (such as Facebook, Twitter), using influencer marketing to reach new audiences who may not have found us otherwise and so forth.

How will you measure the effectiveness of your efforts? If there isn’t anything measurable it’s hard to prove that you’re doing a good job and it’s harder for us to make the case why we should be invested in your success.

Social Media Metric Strategy Questions

51. How do you measure success on social media?

This question helps establish whether or not people know how they’re supposed to track performance – which typically means using analytics programs like Google Analytics and Facebook Insights. This will show that candidates are familiar with common approaches as well as help determine who is best qualified based on their knowledge base.

52. What type of analytics tool would you use in this position?

This answer will indicate how technologically savvy the person is – many people take ‘Google Analytics’ as the default answer. However, there are many other tools that are available to help track metrics and determine performance.

53. What social media metric are you most focused on?

This question will show the candidate’s priorities – whether or not they are more interested in likes, shares, clicks, follows or something else. It also gives an indication of what types of content is going to be created and promoted by this person.

Social Media Hashtags & Follower Management Questions

54. What are your go-to hashtags on Instagram?

This just helps establish someone’s familiarity with a specific network. They should be able to answer this question for all platforms that their company engages in as well as provide examples of how they use those hashtags effectively.

55. How would you define a hashtag?

Knowing what a hashtag is (and isn’t) can help in strategy and execution. For example, if someone were to promote something on Instagram with a catchy caption but no hashtags, it might not be as effective because they’re likely forgetting that anyone viewing the photo will also need to search for that post’s topic before finding it.

56. What are some good examples of hashtags that we could use in our campaign?

The interviewee needs to show an understanding of not just hashtags but also keyword research so they have a better idea for relevant ones for your business. You want someone who knows their stuff!

57. How many hashtags should one post content?

The interviewee should demonstrate a knowledge of the different platforms and how often is appropriate to use hashtags on them. Generally, three-five tags per post will suffice for most social media posts.

58. What do you think are some reasons people might not be using hashtags?

Understanding what could cause someone to avoid using keywords in their marketing can help with brainstorming other ways you can reach this person or get them interested in your product. For example, it may be that they’re trying to make sure all content is original so they don’t want to copy others’ efforts; there’s an increased risk of overloading followers if too many hashtags are used, or maybe they simply haven’t discovered how helpful hashtag usage can be yet.

59. Explain how social media and SEO work together for a successful brand campaign

Social Media and SEO go hand-in-hand in many cases here are few examples of how they work together.

• Some social media platforms are very powerful when it comes to SEO, like Instagram. The user interface on this platform is made up of a photo feed that displays the most recent pictures uploaded by other users you follow and people they’ve tagged in their posts. To promote your business through Instagram, all you need to do is post often while adding an appropriate hashtag relevant to your brand. This way, anyone who uses hashtags will be able to find what you have posted and there will be increased visibility for your product or service.
• On Twitter, if someone wants more followers for his/her account then he/she should simply tweet about things related to one’s industry which would draw attention from potential followers looking for new content. Make sure to include a link in your tweets when you are linking to an article or website.
• One should never forget about LinkedIn! It’s often overlooked because it isn’t as popular as Facebook – but this does not mean that this platform doesn’t have its own benefits: You get business updates through messages from connections and content updates through email subscriptions. A similar trend applies here as well; update your profile every day since new opportunities arise daily.

60 How do you make something go viral?

This question is probably the most popular interview and is always asked with a trendier topic in mind. To make something go viral, you need three key components:

• The right content: You can’t just post any old thing expecting it to take off; if your message doesn’t resonate with people on an emotional level or fit into their lifestyles (or circles of friends), it won’t be shared.
• The right timing: As with any content marketing strategy, you need to know the best time of day and week to post your message in order for it to reach the most people.
• Great promotion: Posting a video on Facebook might not be enough; make sure that you promote it on every social media channel you’re active on to reach a wider audience.

Do your search early; a great Social Media Manager expert is hard to come by, and they are usually booked up months in advance.

Good luck with your journey in finding the right social media manager for your company! And, if you need help, reach out to our team!