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″
About Wendi McGowan