Social media is no longer a questionable business strategy. In fact, you'll most likely be questioned if colleagues and customers can't find you hanging out online. And while social media is now socially acceptable for businesses and entrepreneurs, creating and maintaining a social media strategy requires considerable time and effort.

As we have written about before, many business owners are finding interns as a great source of social media help. How do you know if you’ve found the right fit for your company? Here are a few tips on how to evaluate a social media intern and whether he or she will take your online interactions to the next level:

Check for Use of Social Media Sites – Your potential social media intern should be actively participating in social media. Bonus points for sites that your business uses. You can't take your social media ambitions to the next level if you're starting with someone who doesn't understand the point of hashtags on Twitter.

Look for an Active Following – You'll want your soon-to-be social media intern to have an active following on social media sites, even if his or her connections aren't in your industry. Remember, a following doesn't just relate to Twitter. The number of friends on Facebook, connections on LinkedIn and photos on Flickr are all good indicators of a candidate's connections and online reach.

Insist on Professionalism – Your candidates' social media profiles are essentially another resume for you to review. When you look at his or her social media profiles, what impression do you get? No matter what site you're looking at, profiles should be complete, up-to-date and error free.

Ask for Suggestions – During the interview, ask your potential social media intern what suggestions they have for your social media strategy. Your interviewee's response will give you great information about their knowledge of your current strategy and where to expand your efforts online. To dig deeper about their knowledge of social media, ask what social media sites are not appropriate for your business.

While you shouldn’t bring a social media intern on board without giving direction as to your goals, your company’s message and the voice of your brand, you want to make sure that you find an intern that has some good baseline knowledge of social media, is savvy, up to speed and above all, demonstrates good judgment from his own use of the online universe!