How to Hire a Social Media Manager: Our Exact Process and Job Description

For any company, building and maintaining a social media presence is a key marketing strategy for reaching more potential customers. A company’s social media profiles also act as a space where anyone can get to know your company much better, helping to build a stronger online brand. While we know a lot of small business owners who manage their own social media profiles and love doing it, for some it makes more sense to bring on a dedicated social media manager to free up their time and creative energy.

I’ve recently been going through the process of hiring a social media manager for Buffer so I wanted to share what I’ve learned so far to help anyone else who wants to bring on a social media manager for their team. I've broken it down into five sections: writing a job description, crafting a custom application, promoting the role, and the interview process. Plus, I also included our entire job description at the end. Feel free to grab any part of it that you might need for your own listing!

Let's dive in! ✨

1. Write a Thoughtful Job Description

The first step in any hiring process is writing a strong job description. While this is necessary for promoting the job, it’s also an exercise in defining exactly what you want out of this role.

Take the time to really dig deep into your business needs, asking questions like:

How much experience do I want this person to have? A mistake I see many business owners make is outsourcing social media to an intern or junior hire to save money. This can work if you’re prepared to provide training and support, but if you aren't, then you should aim to hire someone with more experience.
What resources will I be able to provide? Expecting a social media manager to run social strategy and create videos and visual elements and write copy and do customer support and run ads and report on analytics—as you can tell, it’s a lot. Think about what your key needs are and what resources you have to help cover some of the other bases.
What channels do I want them to focus on? I always recommend brands focus on their social media marketing on one or two channels, rather than trying to be great at them all. Given how many specialties there are in social media marketing, you should also look for candidates with specific experience in those channels. It’s also important to consider whether you want someone with more experience on paid or organic since those are such different skill sets.

At Buffer, we ultimately decided we wanted a candidate who is skilled at organic Twitter, who has specific experience in our industry, and who is strong in community management (but not necessarily customer support, since we have resources for that).

Check out our final job description at the end of this post, which you can adapt to your own needs, at the end of this article.