Three years ago you would have been hard-pressed to find one, but today many people are calling themselves " social media consultants." As blogs, social networks, and social sites explode in popularity, companies are looking for help in navigating the often-confusing world of social media.

But does your business really need a social media consultant? And, if so, how do you find the right one?

This article will help you determine what your needs are and how to find someone who can help you successfully integrate social media into your current business efforts.

Why do you need a consultant?

Before you begin contacting consultants, consider why you think you need one. What does your business want to do with social media? And how do you know that you should be launching a social media initiative to begin with? You may be considering launching a company blog, when in fact creating and maintaining a Twitter presence makes more sense.

Regardless of why you want to hire a social media consultant, you should make sure that the consultant is willing to provide training as part of the services. For example, if you hire a consultant to create and execute a blogging strategy, you want that consultant to spend some time training you during the entire process. Otherwise, you will have to continue to work with a consultant after the blog has launched: Though you now have a blog, you still aren't sure how to use it effectively. Ideally, training will be a core element of any project that a consultant performs, so that when they walk away it's because you are ready to take over and use the tools correctly.

Many companies are beginning to seek out consultants to provide basic social media training and workshops/seminars. This makes good sense, because it gives a company the ability to expose its employees to social media and begin the learning process. The ultimate goal of hiring a social-media consultant should be to make your company self-sufficient in using these tools, which makes training cost-effective. Many consultants will provide a variety of training services, such as presentations, keynotes, or even full-day and multiple-day workshops.

Another alternative is to hire a social-media consultant on a retainer basis. This is a good option if your company has some social media experience but it needs a bit of monitoring/tutoring on occasion. An option such as this lets you save some money by doing much of the heavy lifting yourself, but you also have an expert you can contact for help when you need it.

No matter why you are considering hiring a social-media consultant, always insist that the consultant train you on how to properly use these tools. If you don't receive training during the creation and execution of a project, it will only cost you more money down the road, as you will have to hire another consultant to provide training/mentoring as you continue your social media efforts.

How to evaluate a social-media consultant's qualifications

If you've decided that you do indeed want to hire a consultant, you'll need to next do some homework to decide whom you should hire. The logical first step in the process of identifying your ideal consultant is to google them.

When you do, you should see many search results for their name as well as their accounts on various social media sites. Many social media consultants are actively blogging and maintaining a presence on one or more social networks or sites. If, for example, you google my name, you see that there are over 30,000 search results, and among the first 10 results you see my blog and my Blogger profile, as well as my Twitter account and my LinkedIn account. You can immediately tell that I am active on multiple social sites.

But if you had googled my name and there were only a few hundred results, many of which didn't appear to be related to me, that would be a major red flag. Any social media consultant who actively uses social sites and tools should have a robust number of Google search results returned when you search for their name. If you google a social media consultant's name and don't immediately see such results, you should be concerned.

Next, you need to determine whether the social media consultant you are researching has experience working with the social media site/tool that you need help with. For example, if you want to hire a consultant to help you with your blogging efforts, you would want to see whether the consultant has experience blogging. If the consultant has a blog, it should show up at or near the top of the Google search results when you search on his name.

Once you have found the consultant's blog, you can then check how well it seems to be performing. You'll want to pay attention to the following:

• How many comments does the blog have? Ideally, most posts should have comments.
• How often does the consultant publish new posts on the blog? You'll want to see the blogger posting at least on a weekly basis.
• Does the consultant publish any traffic/subscriber statistics for the blog? Many consultants will publish their blog's traffic numbers or the number of subscribers. If the consultant doesn't publish any statistics, and the blog doesn't have many/any comments, it could be a sign that the blog has little traffic.

Evaluating a consultant's blog is important, because if a consultant appears to have a healthy and vibrant blog, then odds are he or she can help you improve your blogging efforts. Blog consultants will understand that their blog is a tool that can be used to sell potential customers on blog consulting.

Many companies are also looking for help from social-media consultants in launching a presence on Twitter. Once again, you should check Twitter to see whether the consultants are on the site and how they are using it. You will want to see that the consultant has been using Twitter for at least a few months, sends updates regularly, and has a growing number of followers.

One tool you can use to track Twitter usage is Twitterholic. It will give you an idea of how often a person is using Twitter (updates) and how the number of that person's followers is trending (as well as the number of people the consultant is following). Another tool is TweetStats. It will  show not only how long someone has been using Twitter but also how many Tweets (updates) the person has sent each month, which Twitter users he or she replies to most often, and what percentage of updates are replies to other users.

Another tool you can use to quickly gauge how active a consultant is on social media sites is HowSociable. It was created to let you see how active brands are in using social media, but you can also use its search function to see how many social tools individuals are using as well. The results it gives aren't always accurate, but it will give you an idea of whether your potential consultant is active on multiple social sites.

Finally, you'll want to see whether the consultant you are considering can provide a list of work completed for current or previous clients. But do not write off a potential consultant who apparently hasn't worked with clients before. Many successful bloggers begin consulting simply because potential clients begin inquiring about their availability to consult. Also, since the field of social-media consulting is relatively new, many consultants won't yet have a robust package of client work. So, although a nice portfolio of client work is important, it's not essential.

Which services does a consultant offer?

Perhaps the most important consideration for choosing a social media consultant is the services they provide. Most consultants have this information clearly detailed on their Web site or blog. That information will also give you an idea of how much time the consultant has spent working with companies on their social media strategies. That's because many of the blogging and social media consulting services offered and listed will likely have been added, as has been the case with me, after working with clients and talking to potential clients.

As noted earlier, make sure that the consultant offers social-media training as a core service—so that you'll be able to handle the project after the consultant's involvement ends.

A final checklist for choosing a social media consultant

Here's a quick checklist of the steps you should take in choosing a social media consultant. More than anything, remember that research is your friend.

• Do a Google search for the consultants you are considering. If they are actively using social media tools and sites, you should see many results for their name—and those results should include their accounts on multiple social sites/blogs. If you find few Google results, and don't see any that are for their blog/social networking/microblogging profiles/accounts on the first few pages... that's a red flag.
• Once you've got the consultants Google results in front of you, start examining their "social media footprint." For example, if they have a blog, check it out and see how active it is. Do most posts have comments? How often does the blogger post? What are their traffic/subscriber levels? Or if you are considering a consultant to help you launch a presence on Facebook, make sure the consultant is active on Facebook. The idea is to spend some time doing research to decide whether the consultant is actively using the tools he or she is consulting about.
• Look for consultants who offer social-media training. This is a must: You don't want consultants to simple create and launch a social-media project for you—you want them to be willing and able to train you on how to use those tools yourself.
• Check clients with whom the consultant has worked. If you are a small business, make sure that the consultant has worked with small businesses in the past. Or if you are an enterprise customer, you'll want to know whether the consultant you are targeting has worked with larger companies. But keep in mind that social-media consulting is a relatively new area, so don't be surprised if many consultants have had few, if any clients, and you shouldn't automatically write off a consultant who has a slim portfolio of client work.
• Just ask. If you need help launching a company blog and have a blogger whose work you admire, contact the blogger to see whether he or she offers consulting as a service. Many social-media consultants will offer you a free initial consultation, so feel free to contact several before you make your final decision. Research, research, research.