8 interview questions Social Media experts should be able to answer in a job interview

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Sept. 23, 2013 - PRLog -- Social media marketing is time-consuming, and jobs have to be created to get the work done. In line with this trend, social marketer job openings are on the rise in South Africa and, more often than not, are filled by socially-minded junior staff.

To help our social media candidates prepare for their job interviews, our digital marketing recruitment experts have compiled a list of the most popular job interview questions encountered by social media candidates.

1. What are your favourite social media blogs?
Working in social media can be like trying to hit a moving target, so staying up to date is crucial. Before you attend the job interview, look at your social media blog bookmarks.

For inspiration here are my favourite social media blogs:

Mashable
Social Media Examiner
Social Media Today
Kim Garst Boom Social
Danny Brown

2. Why Tweet?
Twitter is not about telling the world how great you are. Show the interviewer you know that by explaining to him how to cleverly use Twitter hash tags and handles to turn Tweeple into tribes. Talk about links and how they are components of successful tweets as they convert into click throughs and shares.

3. How do you measure social return on investment (ROI)?
ROI is measured by industry specific goals, such as lead generation, increasing brand awareness, decreasing recruitment costs, and so on ROI metrics may include website blog traffic, email subscriptions, and the number of mentions. After establishing what your online marketing goals are, you then assign financial values to each goal.

4. What do you think of Google+?
Most people are unaware of the power of Google+ and have a profile because they heard that it is useful for search engine optimisation (SEO). Being a fairly new social network, on Google there is camaraderie that is rarely felt in more established networks. You can join communities (types of forums for different interests), host hangouts, troubleshoot technical problems, or do subtle product promotion. Social updates will rank on Google, and search results will feature in the top pages in your followers’ search results.

5. As a social media manager, what do you see as some up-and-coming social media platforms?
In a recent survey by Social Media Today 34 % of Facebook users admitted that they spend less time on the network. Despite Facebook’s declining popularity, the popularity of social media, especially those used on smart phones, will continue to rise as humans are social by nature. Relevancy and SOLOMO (social local mobile) will remain important in social media. In addition, there is likely to be an increase in the use of technologies such as augmented reality and products like Google’s Glass technology, which we have already started seeing.

6. What do you think are the traits of a successful community manager?
A successful community manager needs good judgement, strong communication skills, a 24/7 attitude (which is a feature of the social media lifestyle), the ability to manage multiple platforms and track feedback. This person needs to have an analytical mind and be capable of sharing information with superiors. The person should be adaptable, calm, and be able to solve problems. As a community manager, you have to eat, sleep and breathe the brand. You also require people skills, and have to be outgoing, friendly and relatable. Finally, you need to be comfortable interacting with people offline as well as online.

7. Can you write?
Blog posts, website content, press releases, guest articles, email campaigns, proposals, social content: you have to be able to craft your ideas and messages to fit any medium. A good social media manager needs to be able to produce engaging, relevant and sharable content, pleasing search engines as well as humans. It’s to your advantage to show some of your previous blog posts.

8. Which social media brand strategy has inspired you lately?
Show that you know about the social media efforts of major brands. Glamour Magazine, for instance, is taking advantage of Google Hangouts to engage their fans in ways that print cannot. This Hangout campaign by Glamour features staff, online personalities, and brands, while cleverly and subtly advertising products.

If you are you a social media marketer and have been asked interesting or frightening interview questions, please share them with us.

Should you be looking for a job opportunity in digital marketing and social media in Cape Town or Johannesburg, please get in touch. Initiate International is a specialist recruitment agency for digital marketing jobs in South Africa (http://www.initiateinternational.com/cm/sectors/marketing...).