Social Media Specialist interview questions and answers
This Social Media Specialist interview profile brings together a snapshot of what to look for in candidates with a balanced sample of suitable interview questions.
Are you a candidate?
Crush your interview with our guide
Social Media Specialist Interview Questions
A social media specialist is more than just the person with the passwords to all your social media accounts. This person should have a solid understanding of how each social media channel works and how to optimize content so that it is engaging on all those channels. They’re also responsible for joining relevant conversations on behalf of your brand and “soft selling” your product by providing support to current and prospective customers.
Social media doesn’t function in a vacuum, and a great social media specialist will be able to build strong working relationships with the rest of your team. Their colleagues include content writers, graphic designers, and search marketers. The person you hire should have a strong understanding of how SEO, content (blogs, email, video, etc) and social media work together to create effective digital marketing campaigns. They will also be metrics-driven and committed to showing you quantitative results.
Social media gaffes can exist forever in screenshots, so you’ll need to hire someone with good situational judgement. Questions like “How would you respond to an angry customer?” can be useful for this purpose. Use these interview questions to assess your candidate’s experience with managing social media for brands (rather than for personal use), as well as the overall personality fit. Someone even-keeled with a touch of humor and an innate desire to help would be a strong fit for this role.
Role-specific questions
- Describe the structure of your current marketing team. What is everyone’s role? Who do you report to?
- Discuss the relationship between social media and content marketing.
- Social media functionality is constantly evolving. How do you stay updated?
- What’s the relationship between social media and brand-building?
- What social channels do you prefer and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
- What other social media platforms do you use on your own time?
- What strategies would you recommend for building a social following?
- How would you describe the brand voice of your current company?
- How would you describe your company’s visual identity?
- What tools do you prefer for scheduling, content curation, project management, social listening, etc?
- How have you used social media for customer support?
- What’s the relationship between social media and sales?
- How would you present the results of your work?
- How would you encourage the creation of user-generated content?
- How do you integrate social media with offline events?
- Describe a time you interacted with an angry customer on social media.
- How would you handle negative comments about your brand on social media?
- What have you noticed about our current social presence? What could we improve?