If this is the year your company is going to dedicate some serious resources to social media, you may need to consider dedicated people to manage your efforts.  Whether those are marketing or PR roles with a heavier social media focus, customer service roles with a community twist, or purer social media and community positions dedicated to driving strategy as well as execution, there are many skill sets to consider.

THE DOs:

You first want to determine whether your focus is on communications, customer service, internal communication, community development, or some combination of all those things.  Not all social media roles and responsibilities are created equal, and there are many disciplines within social media that can have value:  strategy, execution, integration and management, measurement and analysis, etc.  This fact might mean you need one person, or that you might need a team of specialists who can employ social media specifically to their areas of expertise.  Either way, be sure to:

• Emphasize integration of social media strategy with larger business goals.
• Look for professionals with solid communication skills… writing and speaking.
• Seek out minds that embrace precedent, but that are willing to challenge thinking and create new solutions.
• Facilitate a culture and empower your team to put the customer needs at the forefront of their work.  Find people passionate about doing just that.
• Specify the need to not only understand measurement as it has been, but understand how to evolve and implement new measurements to apply to new initiatives.
• Find people who have the skills to communicate and work on cross-functional teams internally… some who is good at teamwork and collaboration.

THE DON’Ts:

First of all, resist the urge to run out and get a community manager or a social media director just because someone else has one.  And, break out of your typical job description format.  Write down what your company needs for this role and what it doesn’t and build a role description from there.

• Don’t focus too much on specific platforms like Twitter and/or Facebook.  Familiarity with them is good, but the tools are changing almost daily, and they are much easier to learn than the mindset behind them.
• Think carefully before making your primary social media roles junior or entry level ones.  Yes, we all know that social media use is predominant in the 18-24 age bracket, by and large.  However, the culture and operational implications of a social shift means you need someone a bit more experiences with brand management, strategy, and project management.
• When looking at deliverables and expectations, don’t forget an engagement strategy.  Links, fans, followers, and eyeballs aren’t enough.  You need loyal, product-buying customers to come out of this strategy.
• Remember that content is the means, not the end.  The goal of content creation should be an improvement in some aspect of customer relationships beyond just delivering messages, and you need someone who understands that.
• Don’t lump SEO, content, traffic generation and social media all in the same bucket.  They are different skills and different strategies.  Not all “online” roles are alike.
• One social media or community manager isn’t going to create social media brilliance for your company.  They might be able to get you on the path, but if you’re committed, you’ll need to have them help infuse the social media strategy into lots of different roles across your company.
• Don’t limit yourself by parking social media in the marketing department.  Might it be better suited to a customer service role within your company?  (think H&R Block, Dell, Zappos)

Adapted from Radian6 and “This is the Year!  Social Media Resolutions 2010″

We know that companies that engage their customers online gain a unique ability to build loyalty beyond what is otherwise possible. Social media sites teem with activity between brands and consumers, and these online interactions often present opportunities for building engagement and loyalty unavailable in any other channel.  However, they also present a challenge because social customer relationship management requires new methods of measuring impact, particularly in the case of loyalty.

Companies are exploring ways to link activity on blogs, social networks, private communities, microblogging sites (e.g. Twitter), and forums to increases in loyalty using new and established measures.  In the brick-and-mortar, email, and e-commerce channels, specific behaviors often indicate loyalty, whether attitudinal or behavioral.  These behaviors include actions like purchase frequency, survey completion, and loyalty program participation.  However, in the case of social media, since most social sites aren’t transactional, the increased interaction often linked to behavioral loyalty doesn’t necessarily equate to a stronger, more loyal relationship.

Clicks and visits aren’t always a reflection of engagement.  More accurate measurements are number of postings, completed profile percentage, participation in polls and surveys, or service-related questions asked or answered in a forum.  These activities make attitudinal loyalty more measurable within the social realm than in other interaction channels… and closely correlate with success or failure of a brand’s blog, community, or other social initiative.

In fact, “listening” to customers via social media helps companies to measure customer loyalty, and delivers the added benefit of helping to build loyalty.  Social media is an instantaneous addition to emotional loyalty because customers see a different side of the company… one that cares about you.  So, if part of your company’s strategy is to create emotional loyalty and lifetime customers, giving customers a great experience through Facebook or Twitter is one step closer to that goal.

Community breeds loyalty.  (Think Dell’s Idea Storm)  Customers who participate socially remain customers longer and repeat customers longer and repeat purchases more often.  And, most important, you’re able to recognize when customers say something about you… you’re actually able to respond.

Advocacy (like ratings) strengthens loyalty and brand perception.  Whether customers post positive or negative comments, the ones who participate are the brand’s core customers.  The end-game isn’t just messages on a wall.  Use these tools to drive traffic and build repeat business.  The average Facebook user has 180 friends, which translates into a lot of impressions.

In the recent report “Social Brand Strategy,” Forrester Research principal analyst Lisa Bradner outlines how to best integrate a social media strategy into a multichannel marketing initiative.  Here’s three steps for success:

1. Do not require opt-in: Registration is essential to understanding customers and their social behavior, but it should be optional for most social media access.  Encourage registration (via your newsletter or by offering discounts), but the site should be freely available to anyone.
2. Understand the number of advocates: Measure how many people are already engaged with your brand online, like how many people opt in via a social site to receive a newsletter or who comment frequently in a forum.  Knowing these numbers are especially important in the planning stages to gauge interest and determine how extensive a social media initiative should be.
3. Integrate loyalty programs: The same people who join loyalty programs are likely to participate on social media sites.  Companies can encourage participation using such means as creating a private customer community for loyalty program members or giving members additional points or rewards based on their level of activity in the community.

If marketers are looking for a concrete example that social media can’t cure their ills, they need look no further than college football’s Bowl Championship Series.  Almost two months ago, the BCS took to Facebook and Twitter and was immediately dogpiled by thousands of angry college-football fans.  The BCS learned quickly that if your product is hated, social media might not be the place for you.

Now, I’ll give the BCS some props for trying… even though execs should have known the reaction before this initiative even moved out of the “napkin” stage.  And, perhaps it deserves a couple more points for saying the right things some of the time.  BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock said the series wants a “two-way conversation… That’s the great thing about social media. (duh)  It gives everybody a chance to weigh in.”  (golf clap everyone)

Of course, that sentiment was undercut by other statements, including the claim that the BCS is encouraging active debate on its Facebook page (which I can’t believe is still active), and Hancock dragging out the standard statement the BCS has been issuing for years:  “We think a lot of the feelings out there are because people just don’t understand it.”

That’s right, Bill… your audience else is wrong.  The problem isn’t the product; it’s the customers.  Wow.  The truth is that other than the executives of the BCS, the sponsors who have money tied into the current bowl system, and the coaches who are at the top of the BCS standings when interviewed (and therefore have a financial interest in “staying happy” with the system), it’s hard to find any real fans who support this system as it stands.

Sure, the BCS has turned to social media because of a everyone-else-is-there-so-we-should-be-too mindset, but it has also closed its eyes and covered its ears as it goes on saying the same message it always has.  If doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result is the definition of insanity, then saying the same thing over and over and expecting people to start believing isn’t much better.

Excerpted from Ken Wheaton’s editorial commentary “Viewpoint” in the November 30, 2009 issue of Advertising Age.