It’s becoming increasingly trendy to staff your social media guru spot with someone young. That’s wise to a point—the younger generations have grown up with social media and are very comfortable navigating it—but it should not be a mortal lock.

Instead, look for a deep understanding. Your expert-to-be should know the major platforms in and out, have at least a working knowledge of writing, video and webinars/podcasts and be able to grasp how SEO works. If they’re 22 or 40, every candidate and especially every hire should exhibit an active mastery of at least the basics of social media.

They also need to have one heck of a work ethic. Social media management is relatively easy to get started with and requires little time per post or update, but that time adds up fast. I would estimate that I spend about 30 hours a week on theBizEngine blog, Twitter feed, Facebookand various other platforms in order to promote our content and have conversations around small business.

It’s critically important to do it and I thoroughly enjoy doing so, but it’s not a gig for a part-time employee.