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Businesses and not-for-profits are increasingly adopting social media as part of their communications programs.
This isn’t a blog about how ‘social media has become mainstream’. What I do want to ponder is: who’s best suited to manage these social media strategies?
Is it an organisation’s:
• marketing department
• public relations team
• advertising team or
• (if an organisation is lucky enough to have it) its digital marketing department
• a multi-disciplinary team?
I tweeted the question recently and received a variety of responses, but little agreement. It reminds me a little of the great website debate of 10 years ago: who owns the company website? Corporate? IT? Marketing? [Sadly, some companies still haven’t resolved this.]
So where does social media sit? This is a real issue for me.
I work within the public relations field, and the social media campaigns I help manage often delve
into the world of marketing. I’ve got a BA in Journalism and Masters in Communication Management ... I don’t have the energy to become a marketer, too. But I know the marketing discipline would add definite strengths to some social media projects.
But do marketers care enough about regular two-way conversations with stakeholders? Probably not as much as PR bods, who are charged with caring about what all audiences say about their clients, wherever they say it.
Social media and PR work well together.
A PR professional can see where social media fits within a business’s overall communications strategy. Good PR bods recognise the need for two-way communication within an organisation, and social media is today’s key to two-way communication tool. PR professionals are also focused on outcomes, on reaching the right audiences in the right place, with the right message. We won’t play with social media just for the sake of it.
As Lee Hopkins has said (and said often), it’s about strategy. Who’s best able to steer your social media strategy for you? It’s not just about opening a Facebook page, boosting membership numbers, and blasting followers with regular marketing messages. There’s got to be a rhyme and reason to all this. If you’re not asking that question yet .. believe me, your followers soon will. Consumers are becoming more savvy and selective: they won’t follow everyone forever.
There needs to be a long term view. What’s going to happen to that Facebook page in a year, in two years? What does the organisation want to achieve? What does it believe in? What type of relationship does it want with its stakeholders?
This isn’t a blog about how ‘social media has become mainstream’. What I do want to ponder is: who’s best suited to manage these social media strategies?
Is it an organisation’s:
• marketing department
• public relations team
• advertising team or
• (if an organisation is lucky enough to have it) its digital marketing department
• a multi-disciplinary team?
I tweeted the question recently and received a variety of responses, but little agreement. It reminds me a little of the great website debate of 10 years ago: who owns the company website? Corporate? IT? Marketing? [Sadly, some companies still haven’t resolved this.]
So where does social media sit? This is a real issue for me.
I work within the public relations field, and the social media campaigns I help manage often delve
into the world of marketing. I’ve got a BA in Journalism and Masters in Communication Management ... I don’t have the energy to become a marketer, too. But I know the marketing discipline would add definite strengths to some social media projects.But do marketers care enough about regular two-way conversations with stakeholders? Probably not as much as PR bods, who are charged with caring about what all audiences say about their clients, wherever they say it.
Social media and PR work well together.
A PR professional can see where social media fits within a business’s overall communications strategy. Good PR bods recognise the need for two-way communication within an organisation, and social media is today’s key to two-way communication tool. PR professionals are also focused on outcomes, on reaching the right audiences in the right place, with the right message. We won’t play with social media just for the sake of it.
As Lee Hopkins has said (and said often), it’s about strategy. Who’s best able to steer your social media strategy for you? It’s not just about opening a Facebook page, boosting membership numbers, and blasting followers with regular marketing messages. There’s got to be a rhyme and reason to all this. If you’re not asking that question yet .. believe me, your followers soon will. Consumers are becoming more savvy and selective: they won’t follow everyone forever.
There needs to be a long term view. What’s going to happen to that Facebook page in a year, in two years? What does the organisation want to achieve? What does it believe in? What type of relationship does it want with its stakeholders?
New ‘Social media specialists’ who are setting up shop specifically to push organisations onto platforms like Facebook need to take a chill pill. They’re membership factories ... with a finite membership. It’s a recipe for disaster.
IN SUMMARY: social media is turning into a specialist role for people with multi-disciplinary skills. The ones who rise to the top will be those who respect other specialities, ask for advice, and follow a STRATEGY.
I'm going to go with "a multidisciplinary team"/ approach as well.
Back in August last year, an Adelaide marketer wrote a blog entry called "Why your IT person shouldn't manage your social media". Unfortunately this blog entry has since been removed, but it sparked a lot of discussion on Twitter at the time as to who should be managing social media.
Ultimately we came to the conclusion that no one group really has all the answers, and that we should be collaborating with one another to come up with solutions.
@hortovanyi wrote about it at the time too: http://blogs.toasttechnology.com.au/roller/hortovanyi/entry/cup_cakes_and_bunnies
Good thoughts, Michelle ... you should probably take a look at @trib's thoughts as well (if you haven't already): http://www.acidlabs.org/2009/12/07/social-media-strategy-should-be-a-long-bet/
I think that a lot of PR/marcomms/marketing people (#socadl crew excepted, of course :D ) still see it as a shorter-term "campaign" rather than an ongoing practice - a tactical rather than strategic view. I prefer your take (and @trib's) ...
Ric, I couldn't agree with you more about companies seeing any social media initiative as a short-term play in the sandpit rather than a long-term conversation.
Our job as communication professionals, of what ever flavour or background, is to educate and inspire our clients, colleagues, family members, etc., as to the REAL reason social networking exists: because we have a deep-rooted desire to connect to others.
There has been some encouraging work on this by many academics, and also a report by a well-respected market research chap whose name I can't remember, but I'll flick you both a copy of it if you DM me your email addresses.
Back to the deep-rooted desire (ahem): Traditionally, companies have put up barriers to conversation and communication. Now that those barriers are ever more porous, and the clamour to bring them down ever greater from outside of the company gates, companies are s-l-o-w-l-y getting the hint that they will have to engage with their audiences if they wish to stay 'front of mind'.
It is our job to hold their hand and let them build up the confidence to eventually do it on their own. Our role should always be a strategic one - prodding for answers to the five key questions of Who, What, Where, When and Why. I'll post more about these questions later...
Thanks for letting me rant, M, and for mentioning me in your post.
Thanks everyone for your comments.
Tarale and Ric, I'll look look up those sites you've mentioned.
Lee: will DM you.
Cheers.
Interesting thoughts Michelle. I agree entirely that any use of social media within an organisation needs to have strategy and can't be aimlessly using the tools.
However, I find it very difficult to answer the question who 'owns' social media within an organisation because in my opinion everything that is customer facing or requires an understanding of customer's (which is pretty much everything) is marketing (albeit with different focus e.g. PR, advertising, digital, which I guess also could fall under the category 'marketing communications')
Marketing is fundamentally the science of understanding consumers and matching them with the right products and services for their needs. While social media gives us unparalleled insight into the mind's of our consumers it does not give us permission to engage with that. To do that we must first understand how we can add value through our interactions.
I've written a longer, rambling response that you can find here: http://www.malchia.com/wp/2010/03/who-owns-social-media/
Hi Michelle, I know this has been up for a bit but I just came across it and got thinking. I agree with you about the need for a clear strategy, respect for others' strengths and a multi-disciplinary approach - all to focus on the customer. These all very important if factors if you have a large organisation but what if it's a small team with limited social marketing experience! It seems everyone has an opinion but not a lot of knowledge! Did I mention no $$$$!