- Template item
Around 62% of the world’s population uses social media. Considering the outsized roles these networks play in our lives, it’s easy to think you know them inside out. Similarly, many business owners try to handle social media marketing themselves to save up. The truth is—they’re usually in over their heads.
Social media is complex and ever-changing. You need a seasoned expert to navigate it and turn it into a money-making machine. If you want to enhance your social reach and engagement but lack the funds for a full-time expert, you can hire a social media consultant.
In this article, you’ll learn everything you need to know about these professionals and the process of hiring them. At the end, we’ll introduce you to MarketerHire, a platform that simplifies hiring social media consultants and other expert marketers.
What Is a Social Media Consultant?
A social media consultant is a seasoned digital marketer who specializes in social media. They offer temporary services and can be engaged for specific projects or to address particular needs. They analyze metrics and your audience, then devise strategies to help you expand your social media reach and boost engagement.
Social media consultants may be similar to social media managers on paper. Their roles are distinct, though—learn about the differences below:
Social media consultants understand the inner workings and unique requirements of each platform. They know how to take advantage of both organic and paid social media marketing. These experts also follow trends and algorithm changes to keep their strategies current.
Besides having the technical expertise, the consultant must also analyze your business goals, values, audience, messaging, and performance thus far. That way, they can provide targeted advice, making sure your brand is visible to the right people and in the right way. Most importantly, they can help turn mere visitors into loyal customers.
What Does a Social Media Consultant Do?
A social media consultant can have a wide range of duties. These depend on the company’s specific needs, but generally include the following:
- Studying the brand: The consultant must first get familiar with what your company wants to achieve, what budget you’re working with, and how you want the brand to be presented. They also have to analyze your current social presence and performance
- Analyzing the audience: If you haven’t found your target audience yet, the consultant can help you do so. They can identify key customer segments and determine their social media habits and preferences. That way, you’ll know which platforms and types of content to focus on
- Devising strategies: Based on their knowledge of your brand, audience, and different platforms, the consultant can make plans to boost your social media impact. They can help you make the most of all social media’s capabilities, from organic and paid content to influencer marketing and social commerce
- Monitoring performance: To ensure their advice is on point, the consultant tracks social media metrics such as clicks, engagement, and conversions. They then fine-tune their strategies to optimize performance further
- Educating your team: During your collaboration with the consultant, you and your team may obtain useful information for maintaining your social media presence. That info may include advice on creating high-quality content, social listening, and community-building
When and Why Should You Hire a Social Media Consultant?
You should hire a social media marketing expert whenever you need expert guidance. Here are some tell-tale signs that you should start looking for a consultant:
- Your brand’s social reach and/or engagement aren’t growing or are declining
- Your content is great but lacks consistency in branding or posting
- You want to get into social media marketing and need a solid initial strategy
- Your brand is facing reputational challenges and needs a way out
- You’re expanding to new markets or launching new products
- You don’t know how to interpret performance metrics
- You don’t have time to keep up with industry trends
As social media consultants are esteemed and experienced professionals, hiring them can be expensive. Fractional consultants are a great middle-ground solution. You can employ them for a specific number of hours instead of entire projects, which can last for a long time. These individuals also have flexible hours, so they can adapt to your current needs.
Whichever way you choose to hire your social media consultant, you can expect the following benefits:
- Alignment of business goals and social media strategy
- Deeper understanding of and connection with your target audience
- More valuable, on-brand, and consistent content
- Alignment with trends and algorithm changes
- Increased brand visibility, engagement, and sales
- Greater return on marketing investment
What To Look For in a Social Media Consultant
When searching for your social media consultant, prioritize these qualities:
How To Hire a Social Media Consultant
The process of hiring a social media consultant usually goes as follows:
- Preparation: Before you start recruiting, think about your needs. That way, you can prioritize skills to screen for and identify top candidates more easily
- Sourcing: You can find consultants by:some text
- Googling them
- Contacting a consultancy agency
- Posting a job ad on job boards, LinkedIn and other social networks, and freelancing sites like Upwork
- Asking for recommendations from your professional network
- Screening: To decide on the top consultant, look at their social media profiles, portfolio, and reviews. You should also interview them to assess their communication style and learn more about their experience and approach. Ideally, you should select a consultant who has worked with companies similar to yours
- Hiring and onboarding: Once you’ve hired your social media consultant, make their integration smooth by providing all the necessary details about your company and brand
Deficiencies of the Traditional Approach to Hiring a Social Media Consultant
Keep in mind that the above-discussed recruiting process has several drawbacks:
- Long time-to-hire: Sourcing, screening, and interviewing consultants can take months of hard work. If your social media performance is low or you’re facing a critical project deadline, these months can feel like years. Not getting expertise when needed could mean many missed opportunities and growth stagnation
- Low reliability: Recruiters who aren’t experts in social media may have a hard time screening candidates accurately. As a result, you may end up hiring an inexperienced or untrustworthy consultant and cause even more problems. You’d also need to repeat the costly hiring process to find another consultant
To spare yourself the trouble and risk, delegate your recruiting process to MarketerHire, a marketing-focused matchmaking platform. It pre-vets consultants and offers free trials and rematching as a satisfaction guarantee.
Why Is MarketerHire the Best Choice for Hiring a Social Media Consultant?
As a hiring platform that specializes in marketing, MarketerHire is a surefire way to connect with elite marketers. Whether you need a social media consultant, email marketer, or marketing analyst, the platform can help you hire them in days.
MarketerHire's track record says it all about its effectiveness. Since 2018, it has made over 25,000 successful matches, some of which for well-known companies and enterprises like Netflix, Unilever, and Forbes.
By partnering with MarketerHire, you can ensure fast, effortless, and stress-free recruitment. Its white-glove, concierge-style service requires minimal involvement on your part. You only need to communicate your hiring needs and the platform's experts will take care of the rest, letting you focus on your core duties.
MarketerHire’s experts pre-vet all marketers before admitting them into the network. The process is extensive and comprises:
- Skills assessments
- Live interviews
- Test projects
Many of the expert marketers have worked with household brands, including Yelp and Uber, so there’s no doubt about the level of their expertise.
To ensure your consultant is not only skilled but also a great fit for your company, MarketerHire uses a proprietary matching system called MarketerMatch. It uses AI and human insight to find a spot-on match and do so quickly.
On top of everything, you get a two-week trial to assess compatibility. If you’re not happy with your recommendation, the platform will rematch you for free.
How MarketerHire Works
No matter the marketing role you’re hiring for, the MarketerHire recruiting process entails only three simple steps:
- Describing your project: Meet with your dedicated marketing manager to tell them about your company, project, and hiring needs
- Meeting your match: MarketerHire will find you a match within 48 hours
- Project kick-off: Your consultant can start working for you within three days
You can scale up, scale down, and cancel the collaboration as needed thanks to MarketerHire’s short-term and obligation-free contract. The platform can also connect you with full-time Expert Assistants if your marketing, design, or sales team is struggling with repetitive tasks.
Secure your business the growth it deserves—reach out to MarketerHire and recruit an exceptional social media consultant!
Other Hiring Guides To Check Out
Need to hire other marketing experts? Check out the rest of our articles below:
