One of the challenges that discourage some to pursue a Social Media Strategy in their organizations is that it is not clear where it is supposed to fit within the Organizational Structure. Social Media activities go beyond your normal Public Relations activities. Content marketing which is actually the backbone of Social Media Marketing, detects that we share more information with our stakeholders and invoke them to engage. Whatever feed back we get, we aught to respond. At the end of the day, we want our followers to become our brand ambassadors and share the information they know about us with their own followers who are a potential market for our products. So, who ever is assigned the responsibility of managing our Social Media activities, must have enough information about us and must also have enough time to respond to any comments on our forums. As we decide who will be in charge of this activity, let us be careful not to fall into the trap of automated responses, because these can repel the engagement that we seek.
Option 1
The first option that we recommend is to have a senior member or the owner run the Social Media pages. This will work well where we are introducing our Social Media activities into our mainstream Marketing and Advertising Campaigns. At the senior level, it will be easier to attract other senior individuals who are influencers in their own spheres. Their audiences are part of our target markets. The knowledge that a senior person has about the projects and activities, empowers them to have clear communication with stakeholders. As a responsible person, they also will know what information to share. This option will however work very well for a small to medium enterprise. Otherwise for a large organization, it might only be used at introduction but as the communication increases and we get more followers and engaging activity, we may want to consider a different option.
Option 2
The second option will be to create a department and designate personnel to be in charge of this department. For starters personnel can be drawn from either the Marketing, Public Relations or ICT departments to boost this new department. But as the strategy stabilizes, it is cardinal that this department be manned by personnel with appropriate skills. In line with this option, different departments can be empowered to run their own Social Media activities whilst controlled and monitored by a central department. For large organizations, the Social Media strategy should also include both internal and external communication. An astute Social Media Strategy will make all stake holders brand ambassadors that rave about us. Those that rave about our brand will share the raving with their audiences who will in turn share with their own audiences and the ripple effect creates an endless potential reach.
Option 3
The third option will be to outsource Social Media Activities to a third party. This option needs to be adopted bearing in mind that it might not be long term. The advantage with a third party is that they are already experienced in dealing with marketing activities in these channels. Consultants are also aware of most of the latest trends and the appropriate tools and applications available. If one were to go with the outsourcing route, they need to be aware that the third party needs to have all the information timeously. Remember one of the attractions of Social Media channels is that information is shared in real time. If we were to decide to run a campaign based on a current event, a third party might not be able to come up with a campaign timeously. The time consuming activities involved in keeping Social Media forums relevant, might end up overwhelming to the contracted third parties. But also the other side of the coin is that a third party might have more time to manage Social Media accounts than a full time employee who might also be having other duties to perform in the organization.
If you are contemplating on implementing a Social Media Strategy, we are here to serve you.
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