With the popularity of social media, it is only natural that a lot of people claim to be experts. Before you spend good money on hiring someone to help you design a social media marketing plan, make sure you do your research. Here a 4 things to look for when you are hiring a social media guru.

1. Make sure your expert has social media accounts. Would you hire a tattoo artist without any tattoos or a contractor who lived in a shack? Not likely. How can someone possibly claim to be an expert in social media if they don’t even use the stuff? Whether it’s Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Foursquare, make sure they use the right media for their business.

2. Make sure your expert actively uses their social media. Merely having accounts isn’t enough. Social media is a constantly moving target, and if your expert doesn’t interact with it all the time, they won’t know the latest and greatest. Check that they post regularly, post interesting content, and that the content varies. If they don’t, they won’t be able to tell you the essential social media steps you need to take for your business.

3. Make sure they ask you questions. If your media expert doesn’t ask you questions about your goals with social media or doesn’t take the time to find out more about your business, you better believe they aren’t going to give you the best advice for your business. It is essential that a social media expert takes into consideration the intricacies of your situation, rather than handing out a stock package. Make sure they will tailor a plan specifically to you.

4. Make sure they don’t promise a certain number of followers. Sure, they may be able to get you 100 followers in two days, but who are these followers and do they care about your message? Simply getting their social circle to follow you, or worse, buying followers (or fans, etc.) doesn’t do anything for making sure your message reaches your target audience. With social media, quality ranks over quantity. The right followers will be more interested in your product or service and are more likely to become advocates for your business. And, the best way to get the right kind of followers, is with the right kind of content.

Tags: Facebook, foursquare, LinkedIn, social networking, twitter, YouTube

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 19th, 2010 at 8:38 am and is filed under social networking, tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.