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TL;DR

• We hired a Senior Social Media & Influencer Marketing Manager for Eightify, a US-based AI startup.
• The goal: hire a person who drive growth from social media (organic, influencers and UGC network) with only $2,500/month payroll budget.
• Total: 364 candidates, 31 starter tasks, 6 interviews, 1 hire in 24 working days.
• Hire: 6 years of experience, cross-market (US & EU), strong in influencer & UGC marketing.
• Funnel proved that hiring from Eastern Europe delivers world-class quality for a fraction of US cost. </aside>

Hiring a social media manager is harder than it looks. You need someone who understands platform algorithms, can negotiate with influencers, analyzes data like a scientist, and creates content that converts. Finding all these skills in one person? That's the real challenge.

This case study walks you through our complete hiring process for a Senior Social Media & Influencer Marketing Manager at Eightify, a US-based AI startup. You'll see the exact steps we took, the interview questions we asked, the metrics we tracked, and the results we got.

If you're looking to hire a social media manager, this guide will show you what works and what doesn't.

What Makes Hiring a Social Media Manager Challenging in 2025

Hiring a social media manager today isn't about finding someone who can post content. You need a professional who understands analytics, influencer relations, negotiations, and ROI — someone who can mix creativity with data-driven insights.

The challenge? These skills rarely come together in one person.

Some candidates excel at content creation but can't interpret social media analytics. Others understand performance metrics but freeze during influencer negotiations. Many social media specialists know Instagram inside-out but struggle with LinkedIn or Snapchat strategies.

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For Eightify, we needed more than a standard social media specialist. We needed a hybrid: a person who could build a UGC content factory, manage influencers, negotiate better CPMs, and connect performance to installs and revenue.

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That’s why hiring a social media manager with this skill set was so hard — especially at a $2,500/month budget.

Why Eightify Needed a Social Media & Influencer Marketing Manager

Eightify is the first AI YouTube summarizer on the market. By 2024, we crossed 500,000 installs and were listed by Andreessen Horowitz among the Top-100 GenAI apps, next to OpenAI and Anthropic.

Until then, we’d grown mostly through organic search and product virality. Now it was time to scale social.

We wanted to:

• Drive qualified traffic from social platforms.
• Expand across multiple geos and channels (Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, Snapchat).
• Manage influencer collaborations efficiently.
• Track true ROI, not vanity metrics.
• Build a UGC content factory that produces hundreds of reels monthly.

The Budget Reality: