Questionnaire for Onboarding New Social Media Clients (Free Template!)

Partnering with new clients is always an exciting process. New customer infusions are the lifeblood for any business. But then, as any company knows, getting new clients is only the first step. The next step – onboarding - is crucial as it sets a working rhythm for your clients and the company. A well-thought-out onboarding process is also key to building long-lasting client relationships.

A social media questionnaire can help you make your social media onboarding process smoother and more efficient for your clients. In this post we'll discuss questions to include in your questionnaire, as well as what comes after onboarding to help streamline your entire social media management workflow.

Get your free questionnaire template here:

Why use a social media client questionnaire?

Social media onboarding is the process of welcoming your new clients. They have their queries and concerns. Onboarding is an opportunity to set clear expectations on both sides.

Your clients expect an organized and smoother process at the least. It is your responsibility to deliver.

If you are a social media agency, then onboarding sets the entire tone of your future relationship with the client. If the process is unorganized, unclear, and chaotic, then there is no better way to lose your clients instantly.

A disorganized onboarding ambiance breaks client trust and puts your capabilities as a company under question. The distrust may resonate in all your further client interactions, or worse, the client may disassociate with your company even before you deliver your service.

Retaining a new customer can be extremely difficult. Onboarding is an invaluable opportunity that can make or break your customer retention.

A social media questionnaire is an efficient strategy to understand your clients before you welcome them onboard. With a clear understanding of their expectations, you can ensure that you give clients what they expect from you.

This makes onboarding a stress-free process for your clients and your company. In addition, you can speed up the onboarding process using insights from the questionnaire. This approach saves time and resources for your clients. Overall, you earn happy clients.

First impressions certainly matter, and a well-developed social media questionnaire helps deliver the best first impression.

Questions to include in a social media client questionnaire

Developing a social media questionnaire should be a well-thought-out process. The purpose is to derive as many valuable insights as possible into the client's business and expectations. But too many questions can annoy clients.

A well-developed questionnaire maintains a balance. It gets clients to give the information you need without overwhelming them. It's also one of the first opportunities for creating great customer experiences for your clients.

#1 What is your company about?

This question gives you the basic details of the client's company and the products or services of the business. Dig a little deeper to get into the story behind the business. Social media is all about conversations. Engaging conversations are all woven around stories.

Stories are what drive a business and its growth. They are the inspiration for the company's mission and values. They are also the driving force behind the entire organization, from founders through employees at the ground level. Stories are crucial not only to your client's journey but also for social media conversations.

Your questionnaire must help the client talk about the business' origins and the inspiring stories that led to its formation.

Some questions to consider toward this end include:

What inspired you to start your business?
How does your story inspire your business values?
In what ways does your business reflect your story?
What difference do you expect your story to make to your audience?

#2 What is your brand?

A brand is a crucial business element because it is through the brand that audiences relate to a company. Use questions that reveal the identity of the brand and the values behind it.

Brand queries are also an opportunity to know about your client's competitors. You get to know insights that differentiate your client from the competition. Competitor insights are crucial because they give you a gateway to give your client's social media presence a distinct personality.

Not to say, this information enables you to give your client a sharp competitive edge online. You are making your client stand out!

Some questions to consider in this category:

What is your brand? Do you use a tagline for your brand?
Are there any specific colors you associate with your brand?
Do you want to retain certain styles, such as font or graphic styles, across your social media mentions?
Who are your brand's main competitors?
What sets you apart from them?

#3 Who is your target audience?

Your client's most important business aspect is the target audience. Knowledge of your client's target audience gives you an understanding of their needs and expectations. You can tailor your social media strategies, content and experiences to suit their preferences.

The more customized your content, the wider your reach and the better the engagement. This wider reach is key to developing a broader presence for your client on social media.

It is important to know about your client's existing target market as well as who they aim to bring into their fold in the future.

Some questions to get the best insights into include:

Who is your present target audience?
Specify the age, gender, and other personality traits of your target audience.
What are your audiences' needs?
Does your target audience include professionals with specific designations?
Who do you consider to be your potential audience but are not yet part of your target audience?
How does your business help your audience?
What are your audience's goals and needs? How do your products/ services help them achieve?
Are there specific social media content types that your audience likes best (Reels, memes, Twitter/X Spaces)? Which social media channels do they frequent?
What should be the frequency of content posting?

#4 What do you want your brand tone to be?

This is important to gain clarity about the tone of your conversations and social media posts. If the client has a social media history, then you could consider going through these posts. But the best way to gain insights would be to get details first-hand from the client.

You may want to ask your client the following questions:

How would you describe your brand voice?
How would you like the tone of your social media posts and content to be?
What is the message you are want to convey with your social media activity?

Depending on the replies, you can draft a content strategy with a specific tone of voice. Posts, conversations, and other content you share can be casual, formal, or professional. The tone can also be sarcastic, funny, or serious, depending on your client's inputs. Sometimes, a fusion or hybrid may also be preferred by the client.

#5 What is your social media history?

This question is to understand the company's social media content strategy. You get to know about the company's foray into paid social advertising, social media campaigns, and the results.

Some questions you may want to include in this section:

What are your social profiles?
What types of content have you posted previously?
How were these posts and other content pieces received by audiences?
Have you run social media ads?
What kind of website traffic have you generated from your social profiles?
Do you want to give any particular reference of a brand within your industry or other, to be followed as an example for brand tone and voice?
Are there any social media advertising campaigns active currently?
What are the social media accounts you are most active on, and why?

#6 Do you have any brand assets?

“Brand assets” is a reference to the company's brand images, guidelines, logos, and other such content. Using such content (instead of stock images for example) helps increase the relevance of your social media content because it feels more authentic - resulting in faster follower growth and better audience engagement.‍

You could ask the client to share such access on the cloud using tools such as Dropbox and Google Drive. Cloud availability makes it easier for your team to share essential details when needed.

#7 What are your expectations from us?

It is crucial to understand the expectations of the client to understand if you can deliver on them. Sometimes, limited knowledge about social media may lead clients to have unrealistic expectations. If so, this is the time to set them right and tell them upfront what is possible and what is not.

These questions should give you a clear idea of your client's expectations:

What are your social media goals?
What do you want us to achieve?
How important do you consider social media in your overall marketing strategy?
What social media reports do you expect from us?
How often do you expect social media analytics and performance reports from us?
Who are the contact points for us?
What would be your role in the social media strategy?
How much involvement should we expect from you?
Is there anything else brand-related we should know before onboarding?

You can use different combinations of the above questions. The aim is to learn about your client's social media stats, brand goals, target audience, content style, and expectations from you.

Get your free questionnaire template here:

How to use a social media questionnaire?

A social media questionnaire can be most efficient when it truly captures relevant client information. Actionable insights from a questionnaire can guide you in creating a customized social media experience for your client.

Here are some ways to use a social media questionnaire:

Nail brand positioning

What use is of social media reach when it is not targeted at the right audience?

Assumptions and inadequate details about the target audience can ruin your efforts and clients' money. With a questionnaire, you get sound insights into the accurate demography of your client.

Engage audiences in a more informed way

Whether you are posting a single post or multiple posts throughout the week, your reach is only as much as your engagement. Reach increases only if your posts are engaging.

A social media questionnaire improves your understanding of the target audience. As a result, you are in a better position to understand the type of content that would resonate with this audience.

When you post with clarity and with the brand voice and audience in mind, a simple post can generate a huge impact.

Tap into unexplored opportunities

A well-developed questionnaire widens your perspective of your client's business and brand. Information on competitors, target audiences, and the business can help you uncover interesting marketing insights. These insights can help you create new opportunities for the client.

For example, competitor information can reveal demography that has not yet been explored. You can target this specific demography for a greater reach.

Build better client relationships

Client relationships need not always be about results. They are important, but your willingness to go the extra mile for your clients often scores more.

A social media questionnaire helps you build trust, deliver results, and supports businesses in reaching their social media objectives. They transform client interactions, giving you more from the interactions.

In the end, all interactions are about experiences. The effort, resources, and expertise you invest in developing a questionnaire are more likely to create the best impression on clients.

Happy clients make your efforts worthwhile and your business purposeful.

Benefits of a social media questionnaire

A social media questionnaire gives you more than just basic details about your client. A well-prepared questionnaire equips you with insights into your client's social media vision and goals. This intel enables you to design an experience unique to your client. The end result is heightened customer experience, a high success rate, and lasting customers.

Some key benefits of using a social media questionnaire:

Provides key insights essential to social media success

You may think you have all the details about your client and their goals based on your onboarding call. But details matter. Without crucial details, you cannot realize success for your clients and yourself.

A questionnaire gives you a detailed chart about several aspects relevant to the client. These details guide you in setting the right goals, devising relevant strategies, and delivering expected results.

When you are helping your client realize their dream, you are creating a happy client and a brand ambassador for yourself.

Builds credibility in your clients

It takes time and effort to create a purposeful social questionnaire. The end result is worth it because it conveys your dedication and seriousness for the job at hand.

Clients are more likely to appreciate your attention to detail. A well-developed questionnaire communicates your grasp of the social media landscape.

A social media questionnaire makes for excellent customer service as well.

These factors, in combination, communicate your expertise and your willingness to go the extra mile for required results. This professionalism engenders trust and credibility in your clients.

You could consider pairing your questionnaire with the following and delivering it as an onboarding package to your clients:

A personalized welcome note
A brief overview of your company
Brand merchandise

Makes expectations clear for both parties

You may have had initial discussions about the client's goals and your services. But a clear idea of the expectations of each party – the client and your company – is crucial before your partnership begins.

A questionnaire is an opportunity to know if the client has a clear understanding of your services. A good questionnaire also tells if you have understood your client's expectations correctly.

If there are discrepancies in understanding, you can communicate your concerns and get everything cleared before misunderstandings creep halfway through the partnership and ruin it.

What comes after social media client onboarding?

So now you know why and how to create an onboarding questionnaire as part of a thorough onboarding process. The next step is to figure out how to streamline your entire social media workflow so you can continue to scale your social media agency. There are several ways to streamline, including automation and outsourcing - here at MixBloom we take the content creation off your plate with our white label social media management service.

Check out our free 7 day trial!

Conclusion

A social questionnaire is one of the best ways to engage a new client. Keep the questionnaire simple and easy to read to get maximum attention from the client. Ensure that questions are easy to understand.

You can improve your client's engagement rate by using interactive content such as images and videos besides text. Include a section for client feedback in the questionnaire. This approach can provide insights you may not have thought about.

A well-thought-out social media questionnaire makes the process of engaging your customer organic. It helps you deliver more as you have an extensive insight into your client's business. The client is happier in the knowledge that the business and the company's social media future are in good hands.

Time to create a social media questionnaire!

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