Traditional measures of service quality (brand loyalty and sales figures) remain vital to a company's success, but valuable new technology-related information is available through social media platforms.
How can companies collect that information and, more importantly, how can they interpret that data to determine strategies?
Enter the social media analyst, a marketing role that is becoming key to brand building and customer service. Social media analysts, often part of the business marketing field, scan accounts such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and Instagram for feedback about their companies and seek to apply that information to business practices.
Factors to consider when hiring a social media analyst
In today's competitive business landscape, establishing a strong social media presence is imperative to marketing products and services across industries and organizational mandates. Official social media accounts for companies have become a personal and direct avenue for customer engagement.
Social media analysts play a vital role in this area as they are entrusted with the expertise to navigate a multitude of social media platforms. In collaboration with senior management, advertising executives, department heads, and various stakeholders, social media analysts establish, coordinate, and carry out branding, marketing, and advertising campaigns using these platforms. Social media campaigns are often the initial and primary point of contact between the organization and its customers. Therefore, clarity, consistency, and compelling messages are non-negotiable.
Hiring the ideal social media analyst doesn't have to be a complicated process.
You should think about the right salary, personality traits and skills, job description, duties and responsibilities, desired skills and experience, interview questions, and even a job advertisement.
For example, social media analysts help direct companies' social media strategies, so knowledge and potentially a degree in marketing is essential. Data analysis skills are also increasingly important.
Finding the ideal social media analyst
All of those aforementioned factors will take time to investigate. It will also be a big task to find the right questions to ask a person in an interview.
Fortunately, TechRepublic Premium has created a customizable recruiting kit.
For example, the kit notes that candidates who can demonstrate competency in mitigating justified or unjustified negative sentiments on social media should be of particular interest. Quickly monitoring and countering negative comments is essential in the changing social media landscape.
The hiring kit also delves into asking potential candidates about the strategies they employ to stay up to date with social media tools and trends and get them to describe a project under significant deadline pressure.
Whether your company agrees with that analysis is a moot point. The beauty of the kit is that it can be modified as you see fit.
If all of this is of interest to you, you can download the 16-page recruiting kit for $19 at TechRepublic Premium.
