There’s always a lot of debate around the question of “what department does social media marketing fall under?” Some say marketing, some say PR, some say product, and others say advertising/sales. In fact, social media can probably fall under many more departments. Companies are always trying to figure out who pays for social media, who takes on the risks, who gets the rewards, etc. Instead of trying to fit social media under a particular department(s), why not create a separate social media department?
I have yet to see or hear about a company that has created a social media department and nobody really talks about doing it, but why not? I think it’s only a matter of time before social media grows to the point where it will be required to be its own department. Companies are slowly starting to understand how valuable social media is and how powerful customer relationships are. So let’s talk about why social media should be a separate entity with its own budget and its own team.
- When social media is a part of many different departments, it’s tough to get stuff done. Every change or implementation needs to get signed off by almost the whole company before it can go into effect, that’s just not going to work.
- A company needs to have someone on the social media game 24/7, do all of the departments have people to allocate to make this happen? Probably not. Somebody (or a few people) needs to constantly be out there staying on top of different social media technologies and building customer relationships.
- There needs to be a central hub for all social media strategies so that various departments can all seek help and ask questions. The social media strategy for marketing, product, pr, and sales should all come from one central team of social media strategists that understand the various departments and their needs. You can’t have everyone going out and creating their own strategies and hiring their own consultants, that just gets messy and unorganized. Having one department that creates social media strategies is more efficient and effective as they will understand ALL the social media strategies that are being put in place.
- Budgeting is always an issue, departments are usually very hesitant to give up funds for something, especially when that “something” can’t be measured as easily as say, traditional advertising. Creating a separate department with a separate budget will help solve that problem (now you just need to figure out a social media department budget, but that’s a much easier task)
- A dedicated department has more time, dedication, and personal interest in creating and innovating social media strategies. A social media department LOVES social media (or should) therefore you should be able to count on them to stay on top of the social media space.
- Other departments already have enough to worry about with expense reports, presentations, market analysis, etc. that all compete for their time. This means that social media strategies do not get the time and effort they deserve, creating a social media department will solve this.
- A dedicated social media department will be able to give more to the community and will be able to build stronger customer relationships. Remember, the social media department will be building quality relationships and interacting with users non-stop, no other department is going to be able to devote this amount of time to reach out to users and make valuable community contributions.
- Relationships are probably one of the most valuable things that a company should be going after. Social media is one of the best ways to build these relationships. Sticking social media under marketing or PR simply does not do it justice, in fact it’s a bit insulting don’t you think?
First off special thanks to Royal Ants Josh for his late night twitter contributions!
These are just a few reasons why social media should be a separate department. I’d love to hear some of your thoughts and ideas. You tell me, should social media be it’s own department? Why or why not?
Absolutely needs their own department!! There are so many new developments every day that keeping up with the technology is in itself a daily job.
The thing with social media is that it needs to be done over and over again on a constant basis. You can't just set and forget it. You need a dedicated team of people to take care of all the social networking tasks.
Fantastic post!!
Jacob – you make a compelling case for companies to have a department dedicated to social media. Based on our recent survey of construction and real estate companies, few companies in those industries have plans to employ someone focused exclusively on social media.
I believe that implementing social media has to start at the top. It should be in alignment with the companies' overall strategy.
John P. Kreiss
MorganSullivan, Inc.
Business Solutions in Construction and Real Estate
http://www.morgansullivan.com
I think part of the problem with this contention is that many companies feel overwhelmed by the prospect of social media and how to engage, and by telling them that they should form a whole dept dedicated to this initiative makes it even more daunting.
I'm all for having social media dedicated staff members – in our little firm, I'm pretty much it at this point. It would be nice to think some day, a group of people could take on the task but I don't think that is where to start. I also believe that in order to properly engage customers and the online community, there has to be a committment from every team member in every dept, not just the ones assigned the responsbility.
I can see both the pros and cons of a dedicated social media department, Jacob.
PRO – The business is recognizing the need for a social media presence, and is actively working on that. Also, as you say, at least with a dedicated department there is no “splintering” of different views – there is one corporate message going out.
CON – There's no immediate ROI on social media – it's a long-term strategy as opposed to a fire sale. This is what's putting many businesses off entering the medium – “How do we measure success?”. This can lead to fingers being pointed at the social media team, with it potentially being disbanded due to non-return economically (at least in the beginning).
What I feel may work best is for there to be a social media strategy company-wide that everyone can adhere to. Have certain areas that are no-go's with other areas that are actively encouraged.
The key factor to social media success is understanding how it will work for your business, and that you need a completely different approach than normal business monitoring. Accept that, and that social media is an ongoing strategy and not an immediate fix-all tool, and businesses will enjoy far more success in social media and outwith it.
I agree that there needs to be a separate department for social media.
I think one of your best points is the strong relationships that you can build if you dedicate a department to focusing only on social media.
Whenever you see a marketer ask for tips on how to reach out to blogs and social networks, it's always a similar response. You cannot just post on as many blogs as possible and expect results. You have to read the blog and get to know the blogger and its views if you want to see any results. You have to develop sincere relationships online. If you don't have a separate division for social media, you will not achieve a true presence in the blogosphere.
Jacob,
Further to our conversation earlier, I thought I would chip in! As Ashley suggests, I too beleive that the Social Media needs to be implemented on an organisation-wide scale. Every employee should be encouraged to participate in the Social Media if they so wish; either actively by creating content, or passively by monitoring the new media platforms If responsibility is refined to one department, I imagine that any Social Media output would feel manufactured. In order to adequately encourage employees to participate, the culture must be conducive to the Social Media.
TLR
Nice Post.
There has been an article floating around about CEOs on Twitter. They are taking the SMM into their own hands.
Do you think they are being lead by a Social Media Department?
I would think that a SMM department would need to teach the CEO and other Senior Leadership Team Members how to use Twitter to benefit the company and display themselves as a real person. That, and how to expand on other social media platforms.
A few others mention that it would be a daunting task to create a SMM department. How much work is it really? Once you are up and running? You have to stay on top of the trend, but someone who really loves social media, the head of your team, would be doing that 24×7, with or without the benefit of the company.
Look forward to more,
Matt
You're more than welcome, I was glad to help where I could. The article was great and I have already forwarded it to some decision makers who were trying to make this exact type of decision.
After we chatted I did have a thought or two more about this and it all revolves around listening, ROI, and ORM.
We all know ROI for social media is a bit of a difficult thing to calculate, and while we social media types understand the value of creating conversations and how it benefits a company, it's hard to quantify that to a CEO.
If there was a dedicated team of social media people working on all the social media efforts of a company they would be able to do a better job of listening to what people are saying and seeing what their reputation is online and they would be able to gauge if it was getting better, worse, or staying the same. How often the company is being mentioned and if it was in a good, bad or indifferent context. These types of numbers can be given to a CEO.
IE: 3 months ago 45% of online conversations about us were in a negative context and we were only talked about 75 times. Last month we were talked about 230 times and only 34% are negative. This information can then be applied to the areas of the company people are complaining about to help the company grow in a more positive direction.
A dedicated team can keep it's finger on the pulse of the companies online reputation. They can tell a CEO or head of marketing if the current marketing campaign is being enjoyed or mocked and how people are reacting to various corporate decisions and product launches. If you have marketing, pr, and advertising responsibilities on top of your social media responsibilities there is no way you can dedicate serious amounts of time to your companies ORM (online reputation management).
Great article. We believe that the biggest barriers relate to measuring the value of resources needed and comparative outcomes (compared to other more traditional activities). http://www.strategicoxygen.com/BlogDetails.aspx…
Secondly most of those who are enthusiastic about this idea are too locked in to the bigger vision and have not broken down into pieces how to build a separate environment over time.
I think that it is essential that businesses should have a social media department. The effort can be time consuming, tedious, and often takes a long time to be effective. However, the dividends that eventually are returned to your business are worth 10 times the effort and money that you put in. Customers are your greatest advocate…use them!
Hi Chris,
I agree that every employee should be encouraged to use social media but im talking about creating actual social media strategies that align with business goals. this go beyond the notion of creating a blog or a twitter account. im all for the social media culture in a corporation but the strategies/ideas/implementation needs to come from the social media marketing department. imagine marketing being a company wide effort, it would be a mess, but at the same time every employee contributes to the marketing effort somehow, either be talking about the company, blogging about a product or event, etc. but the actual marketing strategy comes from that respective department.
thanks for the comment!
hi emma,
that's definitely true, keeping with the dynamic tech scene is tough and the marketers, product developers, and sales folks just dont have the time to stay up to date.
thanks for reading and commenting!
hey john,
it's unfortunate that these companies are not even planning to use some sort of social media strategies to reach out and build relationships with their users. definitely agree that social media needs to align with the company strategy and business objectives, its more then just creating a blog. if you know of any co's that need social media help, let me know 🙂
thanks for reading and commenting!
hi ashley,
that is a good point, however in my opinion social media shouldn't necessarily be “sold.” meaning once a company understand the power and value of social media it will seek out help, in that case creating a separate department wouldn't be too hard. a lot of these companies are involved in take overs, million dollar advertising budgets, overseas accounts, legal teams, etc. so im not sure i buy the whole “daunting” argument on their part. not to mention the fact that I think social media is far more accountable then traditional advertising.
good point about commitment from everyone, of course you can't force people to use social media, some people will want to and others wont. what i was referring to above was creating the actual strategies that need to be implemented company wide, this needs to come from a team.
thanks for reading and commenting!
hi danny,
the roi from social media is more accountable then the roi from a full page spread in the back of a newspaper ad (gonna write a post on this 🙂
it's tough to track the roi from a conversation and yes there are a lot of qualitative factors that you cannot measure, however when compared with traditional advertising, i think it MORE measurable.
social media is absolutely an ongoing strategy that never ends because the conversation never ends.
thanks for reading and commenting!
strong relationships is absolutely key. you make a good point, marketers usually believe in posting similar content on multiple sites, there is no connection there and thus a missed opportunity to learn from the users.
thanks for reading and commenting david!
hey matthew,
im not sure i read the article. the last thing i read was that most ceos/cmos have no idea what twitter is 🙂
i think its great that execs are taking twitter into their own hands and are signing up and encouraging internal use (if that's actually going on). However, i dont know how many of these ceos are actually able to create social media strategies that actually align with their business/company goals. meaning, why is the ceo on twitter and how does that fit in with the business objectives?
i think ceos want to build relationships on their own level, but i dont think they have strategies to do so.
a smm department would need to teach the whole company how to use social media tools and how to benefit from them, there are always going to be some people that just don't get it though.
i agree with you, i don't think it would be too daunting at all, these people run companies for a living!
thanks for reading and commenting!
howdy josh,
let me know if i can help you/your company along the way. as i mentioned above, roi is a little tricky to calculate because of conversations, however there is more to track with social media then there is to track with traditional advertising.
the example you provided is one way to measure social media roi, as opposed to traditional advertising which relies mainly on eyeballs!
thanks for helping, reading, and commenting
hi michael,
i think outcomes of social media are more measurable then outcomes from traditional advertising 🙂
thanks for the comment!
That I can understand, Jacob – after all, how can you tell who came to your store or visited your site from a newspaper ad? Unless you have a “How did you find us?” type question or promotion code in there 🙂
I know that I tell my clients that the ROI from social media comes from the quality of the relationships built in the beginning. Making friends and contacts that have influence can mean more than an traditional ad, PR or marketing campaign – the trick is to give it time and be realistic. The fact that it doesn't really cost anything apart from time is a plus point – as long as someone puts the effort in. 🙂
Looking forward to your follow-up post on tracking.
hi stuart,
like everything else in business if you want to make it work you're going to have to put in time and effort. anyone that thinks social media is going to be a cake walk that will solve all of their problems is mistaken. definitely agree, customers are your greatest advocate!
thanks for reading and commenting
yep roi is more qualitative but you can measure, traffic, leads, online presence, comments, etc. depending on what your goals/objectives are.
relationships are priceless and marketers need to understand that!
thanks for the response
Here is that ARticle about CEOs using Twitter:
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/09/0908_mi…
Great post. One of the problems I've observed while discussing this topic with industry types is that companies often have several people, some in high leadership positions, who all believe that they “know” social media simply because they have a Web page, or a Facebook account or have participated in an online discussion here or there . That's like saying you know how to design a new car simply because you've driven one.
Companies looking to connect with their customers where they increasingly live — online — not only need a social media department, they need to hire social media professionals to run them.
Great thought, I would have to totally agree. Social Media is a full time job and if you try to pawn it off on people who are doing other things you will never be able to take full advantage of its usefulness.
Hey again, Jacob,
I agree to a point, but I still think that overall responsibility for the social media should remain with the marketing department. Let me explain. I think that the confusion we have here concerns whether the social media is primarily considered a marketing tool or a conversational one. Remember that the social media was originally developed as a means of connecting consumers, not as a marketing tool. As such, the benefits should reflect value for the consumer first and foremost; any additional marketing value should be considered icing on the cake. Whilst you mention that this dedicated department would run the social media in collaboration with broader business goals, this to me seems a far cry from a transparent conversation. It is my belief that the sole goal of the social media should be to converse with the customer, addressing needs and concerns as and when they arise. Whilst you may be able to sign up a thousand people to an organisational Facebook group, can goals such as these really be classed as recognition of an organisation objective? I'm dubious… Clearly, many organisations offer an organisational presence; as long as this is transparent, then that's fine, however I think that a 'human' contribution always offers more value to the consumer. This should be actively encouraged within the workforce.
Although I suggest that the social media should not be considered primarily as a marketing tool, due to the nature of the engagement with the customer, I believe that there is only one department in which the role would naturally fit; the marketing department. Whilst this may sound somewhat hypocritical in regards to my previous recommendations, I see the marketers as responsible for engaging directly with the consumer. As such, responsibilities for the social media seems a natural extension of their current job roles.
I guess what it comes down to at the end of the day is whether you regard the social media as a marketing tool designed to help broadcast a message, or as a conversation tool designed to delight the customer.
Thanks for the post, Jacob. Seems to have stimulated a lot of debate!
TLR
excellent thanks for sharing, gonna tweet this out 🙂
hi ron, i agree with you which is why i think that social media and social media strategy are two different things. you use a great analogy in there that makes perfect sense. next time you speak with an industry fellow that says he/she knows social media, as how their strategy is aligning with overall company goals and objectives. how does their tweeting fit into the big picture? how does their facebook fan page meet an objective?
not many people will be able to answer that, just because they don't know.
thanks for reading and commenting!
hi dawn,
absolutely, social media is more than a marketing tool it's a way of life. therefore to succeed you need people that really use and understand the technologies out there.
thanks for reading and commenting!
Great thought, I would have to totally agree. Social Media is a full time job and if you try to pawn it off on people who are doing other things you will never be able to take full advantage of its usefulness.
Hey again, Jacob,
I agree to a point, but I still think that overall responsibility for the social media should remain with the marketing department. Let me explain. I think that the confusion we have here concerns whether the social media is primarily considered a marketing tool or a conversational one. Remember that the social media was originally developed as a means of connecting consumers, not as a marketing tool. As such, the benefits should reflect value for the consumer first and foremost; any additional marketing value should be considered icing on the cake. Whilst you mention that this dedicated department would run the social media in collaboration with broader business goals, this to me seems a far cry from a transparent conversation. It is my belief that the sole goal of the social media should be to converse with the customer, addressing needs and concerns as and when they arise. Whilst you may be able to sign up a thousand people to an organisational Facebook group, can goals such as these really be classed as recognition of an organisation objective? I'm dubious… Clearly, many organisations offer an organisational presence; as long as this is transparent, then that's fine, however I think that a 'human' contribution always offers more value to the consumer. This should be actively encouraged within the workforce.
Although I suggest that the social media should not be considered primarily as a marketing tool, due to the nature of the engagement with the customer, I believe that there is only one department in which the role would naturally fit; the marketing department. Whilst this may sound somewhat hypocritical in regards to my previous recommendations, I see the marketers as responsible for engaging directly with the consumer. As such, responsibilities for the social media seems a natural extension of their current job roles.
I guess what it comes down to at the end of the day is whether you regard the social media as a marketing tool designed to help broadcast a message, or as a conversation tool designed to delight the customer.
Thanks for the post, Jacob. Seems to have stimulated a lot of debate!
TLR
excellent thanks for sharing, gonna tweet this out 🙂
hi ron, i agree with you which is why i think that social media and social media strategy are two different things. you use a great analogy in there that makes perfect sense. next time you speak with an industry fellow that says he/she knows social media, as how their strategy is aligning with overall company goals and objectives. how does their tweeting fit into the big picture? how does their facebook fan page meet an objective?
not many people will be able to answer that, just because they don't know.
thanks for reading and commenting!
hi dawn,
absolutely, social media is more than a marketing tool it's a way of life. therefore to succeed you need people that really use and understand the technologies out there.
thanks for reading and commenting!
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Sorry – I'm not buying it. If you want to make social media a part of the company strategy and also effective for marketing, pr or any other piece of the company – you don't need a whole nother department. All it does is do exactly what you are arguing against. It creates just another layer to the organization, in effect creating more paperwork, more sign off and more issues. Just make it a part of one department like marketing and have 1 – 3 people dedicated WITHIN THAT DEPT to be responsible for it.
Easier
http://ReThinkHR.org
@BenjaminMcCall
In my experience focus equals penetration so the more focused your social media activities the more they will penetrate. Added to this I think a level of continuity the better – a single message is always more powerful than a plethora of mixed messages. I am in favour of a function which owns the whole piece.
Great article Wendy. I’m a small business owner but I think a social media policy would benefit my business as I expand. 🙂