By Amanda Vogel MA
There’s nothing wrong with delegating your social media posting to someone else. Just be sure that person or agency is qualified. When hiring someone to help you with your fitness brand’s content and direction on social media, ask a lot of questions. Here are a few to get you started.
QUESTIONS TO ASK: WILL YOU BE PREPARING A SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY? WHAT ARE SOME OF THE STRATEGY’S MAJOR COMPONENTS?
Any social media expert you hire must have a plan for your success. There are plenty of people on social media who are quite successful at running their own personal pages and getting a lot of attention. That approach is drastically different from preparing a marketing plan and promoting a brand/company on social media. Just because someone is great at posting to his or her social channels doesn’t guarantee he or she will be awesome at managing yours.
Find out how the person plans to strategize social media for you. A good strategy includes looking ahead to running special campaigns, specific plans for creating engagement and attracting new followers, and a long-range vision based on your brand’s goals. A manager needs to do more than just drop a new post on social media every day. Inquire about how daily posts will ultimately tie into the bigger picture.
QUESTIONS TO ASK: WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA TODAY COMPARED TO A YEAR AGO, AND HOW WILL THAT AFFECT HOW YOU HELP ME MARKET MY BRAND? WHAT’S THE NEXT BIG THING IN SOCIAL, AND HOW WILL THAT FACTOR INTO MY SOCIAL MARKETING?
Social media changes constantly. What was popular or worked well a year or two ago might be quite different now. For example, live video wasn’t that commonplace a couple of years ago. Now it’s a mainstay on pretty much every major social platform. Instagram Stories didn’t exist before 2016; now Stories are becoming more popular than Instagram’s main feed.
As the person doing the hiring, you might not be aware of all the changes and updates—that’s OK. When asking questions, observe whether the prospective expert appears confident and is easily able to discuss how the latest changes and upcoming trends will affect you.
QUESTIONS TO ASK: HOW COMFORTABLE ARE YOU POSTING ABOUT HEALTH AND FITNESS? HOW WILL YOU LEARN TO COMMUNICATE IN MY FITNESS BRAND’S VOICE ON SOCIAL MEDIA?
Social media experts know social media; not all of them know health and fitness too. Find out how the person or agency plans to get a feel for your brand and its voice.
It’s not uncommon for fitness companies to hire agencies to handle their social media. Unfortunately, sometimes they end up unhappy with the nature of the content because the agency doesn’t “get” health and fitness.
Any manager you hire should understand your philosophy on fitness so he or she doesn’t post memes or content that might go against your brand’s fitness philosophy or water down your professional image. Questions you ask a prospective social-media manager during the hiring process can help eliminate any issues.