Assuming you agree your company should be on social media, the next question becomes: Who do you assign to handle it?
Sadly, when many companies ponder that question, they follow these two steps:
- First, they figure out who the youngest person in the company is (the reasoning being, I guess, that all young people know social media),
- Next, they figure out whether that person’s workload can accommodate social media (the answer, most of the time, is yes; after all, social media can’t possibly demand more than a few minutes per day, right?)
As you hopefully know, this is the wrong approach.
In fact, it’s so wrong, you’re better off not being on social media at all rather than doing it like this.
Why?
Because even if social media were as simple as some people make it out to be, it still becomes a reflection of your entire company.
Not necessarily the best person to handle your social media.
Why social media is (not) about you
As this blog post from The Creative Group rightly points out, social media is not really about you.
It’s about who you’re speaking to: your customers.
The ones that give you their money. The ones that make your company’s existence and your very livelihood possible.
Your customers choose to follow and engage with your company on social media channels because they hope to find value in the content you share with them.
They hope their concerns will be addressed. They hope they will be understood and appreciated and entertained.
And if they aren’t, well, chances are a competitor will do that for them.
That’s why, ironically enough, the key to making social media work for you is to make it about somebody else.
Do that, and your fans and followers will take notice.
So why not the receptionist?
For all the above reasons, it’s paramount you find the right person to handle your social media.
It doesn’t matter whether they’re from the marketing department or the PR department or the sales department.
(It doesn’t even matter if they’re the receptionist.)
What matters is that the person have a background in social media and online marketing. It matters that they’re decent writers, understand customer service, and do a good job of interacting with various staff in your company to extract the information they need.
What’s more, this person should know and understand your company’s culture inside out.
Is this a lot to ask for? Probably.
Indeed, chances are good you already employ someone with this experience and traits, in which case you likely have a successful social media presence already.
But if you don’t, you owe it to yourself to hire a solid social media professional.
Or if you’re outsourcing your marketing needs, find out whether said company offers an integrated solution that covers (like BAM does) social media, email marketing, signage, print materials, and general strategy, so that your messaging is cohesive and integrated.
(It helps, of course, if they’ve won awards for their work on social media.)
Whether you hire outside your company or not, please understand everyone at your company should be on board with social. This means your company should have an integrated plan that draws from the strengths of multiple departments, and they should know that it’s not about them — it’s about the audience and the customers.
JohnAmardeil.com 