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Social Medians- How Many Hats Will You Force Your Social Median to Wear?

20 February 2009 | social-media | 0 Comment

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You’re already a believer

So you’re going to take on the Mediaverse are you?  You, the CEO have seen the light and truly believe that you must at least dip the company toes into the water on some level- but at what level?  Sally or Jim, the front end receptionist? How about the maintenance guy? He has a mobile phone, he could handle it all by iTouch, right? Of course not, but what about Sarah or Mark in the marketing or public relations department, surely they could take on this Twitter thing- they have nothing better to do between this and that, “it’s just like a water cooler,” right?  Wrong, it just isn’t that.

Social median job description

Depending on the type of business you have, the job description to your new media pro will vary widely.  The fact is, if you believe that you’re really on board with social media, you’re not really on board until you understand that your community builder is a department in an of itself, working in tandem with other mission critical departments.

Who do they answer to? What department are they in?

One of the questions we often hear in presenting social media is what department a social median answers to, and that to me is one of the easier questions to answer- simply put, they answer to the top- whatever that top is.  CEO, Vice President, President, or whomever makes ultimate decisions.

I’ve seen some companies mark their social media strategy for death by tasking their social media strategist in multiple categories.  Often, they’re used to fill gaps in multiple departments as if somehow their tasks are less important than others- fine, so be it, but at your own risk.  Ultimately this can work very well for the independent business person, the self-employed, or the small shop, but even still, social media has to be taken seriously and made an absolute priority in their day to day operations to really realize the benefits of engagement.

The worst mistake a company can make

The worst thing I’ve seen larger companies do is hire less than stellar social medians at reduced salaries in some insane attempt to save money- you’ve seen it too, that temptation to let go of a person in sales to take over social media, but yet part time fills the gaps in the sales department- this will only work by accident, and when I say accident, I really mean by a miracle.  The ideal situation from your desk is an in tandem scenario.

Again, it all boils down to a solid strategy from the get-go, as haphazard never succeeds- you’re a CEO, chances are you’ve made this mistake before in other ways, so let’s skip that step and move quickly to success by understanding that bottom line, your social median is an arm of your business development strategy, they answer ultimately to you, as it’s your brand, your name, and your credibility they’re promoting and building.  You can have layers beneath, but accessible you must be if you really want to experience the full potential of what social media can do for your business.

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