What to Know Before Hiring a Social Media Manager
Hiring a social media manager sounds simple enough. You need someone to create content, post consistently, and keep your business active on social media. But first, you need to decide whether to hire a social media manager or do it yourself, based on your time, expertise, and business goals.
There’s a big difference between someone who knows how to create content and someone who understands how to use social media to support your business goals. A solid understanding of social media marketing and how it works can help you recognize what separates an effective strategy from simply posting content.
Before hiring a social media manager, you should ask about their marketing experience, strategy, content creation process, reporting, communication, and exactly what’s included in their fees.
At The Seedless Agency, we’ve worked with businesses across different industries, and one thing we’ve learned is that successful social media management starts with a marketing strategy, not a content calendar.
Here are the questions I recommend asking before trusting someone with your business’s social media presence.
1. What Is Your Marketing Experience?
This is arguably the most important question.
You wouldn’t hire someone with no marketing experience to manage your advertising budget. Why would you hire someone with no marketing experience to represent your business on social media?
Being good at creating videos, designing graphics, or growing a personal Instagram account doesn’t automatically qualify someone to manage social media for a business.
Effective social media marketing requires understanding your audience, business objectives, and how to communicate messages that resonate with potential customers.
Questions to Ask
- What is your background in marketing?
- Have you managed social media for businesses similar to mine?
- How do you determine the right strategy for a business?
- How do you identify and reach our ideal customers?
- Can you show me business accounts you’ve managed?
Someone who has grown a lifestyle influencer account may be talented, but managing social media for a plumbing company, accounting firm, or B2B business requires a different approach.
Service-based businesses can be especially challenging because they don’t always have visually exciting products to showcase.
An experienced social media manager should know how to turn expertise, customer questions, and everyday business activities into content that builds trust.
Our advice: Look for someone who understands marketing first and content creation second. Ideally, they’re skilled at both.
2. What Does the First Month Working With You Look Like?
This is one of the most revealing questions you can ask.
If their answer is essentially, “We’ll start creating posts,” I’d consider that a red flag.
The first month should establish a strong foundation. Before publishing content in your business’s name, your social media manager needs to understand your company, customers, goals, and brand.
What a Good Onboarding Process Includes
A qualified social media manager should have an onboarding process involving a detailed questionnaire, interview, or discovery meeting.
They should ask questions such as:
- Who are your ideal customers?
- What makes your business different?
- What products or services are most important?
- What are your marketing goals?
- What questions do customers frequently ask?
- Are there seasonal promotions to plan around?
They should also collect your brand guidelines, logos, fonts, colors, photography, and other assets.
Your social media should also look and feel like your website and physical location. Whether someone discovers your business online or visits in person, there should be continuity in your branding and messaging.
3. How Will You Create Content for My Business?
Content creation is one of the biggest differences between social media management services.
Someone creating eight posts using stock photography provides a different service than someone visiting your business, capturing original video, and interviewing your team.
You need to understand what you’re paying for.
Questions About Content Creation
- Will you visit our business to capture photos and videos?
- How often will you come to our location?
- Will you help us create videos featuring our employees?
- Are we expected to provide our own photos and videos?
- Will you use stock photography or B-roll?
- What role will video play in our strategy?
Video is a critical part of social media marketing. If someone’s entire strategy revolves around stock photos with captions, it may not be a strong enough plan.
That doesn’t mean every video needs professional production.
Authentic videos featuring your employees, location, and everyday operations can be more valuable than polished promotional content.
Consider a local service business. You could post a generic graphic explaining why customers should choose your company, or record the owner explaining what makes their approach different.
The second option allows potential customers to connect with the person they might actually hire.
People want to see the people behind the business. That connection builds trust.
4. How Will You Develop Our Social Media Strategy?
A social media manager should explain why they’re recommending certain content, not just how often they’ll post.
Every post should have a purpose.
That might be educating customers, building trust, demonstrating expertise, showcasing company culture, or promoting an offer.
Posting simply because it’s Tuesday isn’t a strategy.
A Real Example: From Random Posts to Purposeful Content
We’ve worked with businesses that struggled to maintain consistency.
Sometimes the owner posted whenever they had time. Other times, social media was delegated to an employee who was initially enthusiastic but eventually became overwhelmed.
The result was inconsistent posting without clear objectives.
Our approach was to establish a content plan with specific goals behind each post.
We incorporated customer reviews to build credibility, videos inside the business to showcase personality, and content featuring the owner explaining aspects of the company.
Consistent posting combined with purposeful messaging helped improve visibility, engagement, and overall traction.
There’s another important benefit.
When that business has a seasonal promotion, it already has an audience that’s familiar with the brand.
Instead of only showing up when there’s something to sell, the business has spent time building relationships with potential customers.
That’s how organic social media can support larger marketing efforts.
5. What Results Should We Expect, and How Will You Measure Success?
Be cautious of anyone who promises to make your business go viral.
In fact, we’d consider making virality a primary goal a red flag.
A viral video might attract thousands of followers, but those followers aren’t necessarily potential customers.
Imagine a local plumbing company whose video goes viral nationwide. It might gain 20,000 followers, but how many actually live in its service area?
If those followers aren’t interested in future content, they may never engage again, potentially weakening engagement signals.
I’d much rather have a smaller audience of relevant potential customers than a huge following of people who will never buy anything.
Questions About Reporting
- What metrics will you track?
- How will those metrics relate to our goals?
- How often will we receive reports?
- How will you determine what’s working?
- What happens if results aren’t improving?
Likes, followers, views, and engagement provide useful information, but they need context.
A business owner might say their ultimate goal is sales. That’s understandable, but organic social media alone can’t be held responsible for every sale.
Social media often supports sales by building awareness, credibility, and familiarity.
Monthly reporting is a reasonable expectation.
We’d generally recommend allowing three to six months to evaluate a strategy’s performance. Your manager should monitor results along the way, but after several months, you can assess whether bigger adjustments are necessary.
Perhaps you need more original videos, employee involvement, or a different mix of educational and promotional content.
6. What Exactly Is Included in Your Social Media Management Fee?
Never assume two social media management proposals include the same services.
One might offer basic posting, while another includes original content creation, video editing, community management, and strategy development.
Questions About Deliverables
- How many posts will you create monthly?
- Which platforms are included?
- Will you create videos, graphics, and carousels?
- Will you respond to comments and messages?
- How will you notify us about customer questions you can’t answer?
- How often will we communicate?
- What happens if we need an additional post?
Community management is particularly important.
If a potential customer sends your business a message, who’s responsible for answering it?
Some questions require input from the owner or employees. You need to understand how those conversations will be handled.
How Will We Review and Approve Content?
Ask how the approval process works.
Will you receive a PDF showing upcoming posts, or review everything through a client portal?
How far in advance will content be submitted? How much time will you have to request changes?
And what happens when something unexpected comes up mid-month? Will additional posts or last-minute changes cost extra?
These details can make a significant difference in your working relationship.
7. Does Your Fee Include Paid Social Media Advertising?
This is an area where we frequently see confusion.
Organic social media management and paid social media advertising aren’t the same thing.
Some business owners assume that hiring someone to manage Facebook and Instagram means they’ll also manage Meta advertising campaigns.
That’s not necessarily true.
A social media manager might say they’ll boost your posts. But boosting posts isn’t equivalent to developing and managing a comprehensive Meta advertising strategy.
While boosting can serve certain objectives, Meta Ads Manager offers more advanced campaign management and optimization capabilities.
Questions to Ask
- Will you manage campaigns through Meta Ads Manager or simply boost posts?
- Is advertising management included in your fee?
- Is the actual advertising budget separate?
- How will advertising results be measured?
Make sure you understand the difference between what you’re paying your social media manager and what you’re paying the advertising platform.
8. Can You Show Me Business Accounts You've Managed?
When evaluating a social media manager, don’t focus exclusively on their own social media performance.
An agency’s social media can sometimes take a back seat to client work.
Instead, ask to see accounts they’ve managed for paying clients.
Look at the consistency, variety, quality, and relevance of the content.
Does every business look the same, or does each account reflect its unique personality?
Experience with a lifestyle influencer doesn’t necessarily translate to success managing an accounting firm, real estate company, or plumbing business.
Some businesses naturally lend themselves to visually appealing content. Others require more creativity and marketing knowledge.
Someone doesn’t necessarily need experience in your exact industry, but they should explain how they’d adapt their approach to your business.
And don’t hesitate to ask for client references.
9. What Are the Biggest Red Flags When Hiring a Social Media Manager?
After years of working with businesses on their marketing, these are the warning signs I’d encourage business owners to watch for.
Promising Viral Content
Nobody can guarantee virality, and viral content doesn’t automatically produce business results. Focus on attracting the right audience.
Not Asking Enough Questions
If someone is ready to post without understanding your business, customers, and goals, that’s a serious concern.
Relying Entirely on Generic or AI-Generated Content
AI can be useful, but it shouldn’t replace authentic content or an understanding of your brand.
Consumers can often recognize generic, obviously AI-generated graphics. Your content should reflect your actual people, personality, and expertise.
Pricing That Seems Too Good to Be True
Low pricing isn’t automatically bad, especially for basic social media support.
But understand what’s included. Extremely low fees might mean little original content, limited strategy, or heavy reliance on templates.
Overpromising Results
Be cautious of guarantees about followers, engagement, leads, or sales that aren’t supported by a realistic strategy.
How to Choose the Right Social Media Manager
If you’re comparing two or three social media managers, look beyond monthly fees. While understanding how much it costs to hire a social media manager is important, you also need to consider what’s included and the value each candidate brings to your business.
Pay attention to their marketing experience, onboarding process, content creation approach, communication expectations, and previous client work. For additional guidance, Agorapulse offers helpful advice on how to hire a social media manager.
Ask how often they’ll capture original content and how they’ll maintain consistency with your brand.
Most importantly, make sure they understand that social media is part of your overall marketing strategy. A good social media manager should also recognize when it’s time to shift your social media strategy based on your business goals, audience engagement, and changing needs.
At The Seedless Agency, we believe strong social media programs start with understanding the business, creating purposeful content, and consistently communicating messages that build trust.
A great social media manager isn’t simply someone who fills your content calendar. It’s someone who understands your business well enough to communicate its value to potential customers.
If you’re considering outsourcing your social media, The Seedless Agency can help you determine what level of social media management makes sense for your business and how it can support your broader marketing goals.
