Who Should Own Social Media?
It’s a frequent question I hear: “Who Should Own Social Media?”
Three Common Reasons for Social Media
In our experience at Room 214 we typically see three major reasons organizations dive into social media:
- Product Development/Feedback
- Sales/Marketing/Brand
- Customer Service
Each one of those “reasons” requires its own cast of characters to “own” the process. In addition – each carries unique key performance indicators to measure the health and success of the project. Because function-specific business goals, community value and KPI’s are all different – it’s critical for anyone heading social media efforts in a particular channel to have a clear understanding of the impact measures.
Know Thyself
To steal from Farmer Ted ask: “Who Am I?” In a recent webinar delivered by the Altimeter Group about developing a social strategy one key point was to consider how your company will run things. Will it be Organic, like a Microsoft, where it’s loose and open? Centralized like Starbucks, where it’s controlled by one department? Coordinated like HP, where all departments are participatory but guided by strategy and rules?
The success for a social media program increases significantly when the structure matches the culture – in the beginning that is. As the organizations ingests social media into its culture it will change things – but to begin with – know who you are. Natural leaders will emerge.
Structure Your Team Based on the Golden Rule: You Respond To It – You Own It
The rule is if you respond to an online conversation you own it. For that reason you don’t want PR people responding to a customer service issue because more than likely they don’t have the authority, or resources, to drive resolution. If you’re not driving resolution with customer service issues you’re doing more harm than good.
Conversely you don’t want a product developer in charge of creating a response to an attack (justified or not) on the brand.
Know the conversations happening around your brand and make sure the right people are there to own it.
Ensuring a Common Thread
We do believe Corporate Communications should have intimate knowledge of the organization’s social media activities. Reason: a disturbance in the force requires a quick and professional response. The organization does not want the 24-year old tasked with community management on Facebook stoking consumer ire because they didn’t keep their cool.
Competent Sounding Board
Even if the Corp Com team gets pulled in there needs to be an individual(s) acting as a competent sounding board to provide insight into the rules and structure of the community. This keeps from crafting a response strategy that unintentionally throws fuel on the fire.
So Who Owns It?
Answer the questions:
- What’s your reason for getting into social media?
- How will you measure success?
- What’s your corporate culture?
- What are people saying?
- Who’s got the budget?
- Who’s got the time, energy and willingness to do it right?
Envelope Please
And the answer is: It Depends
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.
- Dr. Suess
….glad you asked though.
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