The debate about “Who owns social media” has been raging for years, but is it possible that the real owner doesn’t exist within your organization… yet?
Many top businesses are investing heavily in Community Managers and Social Business Managers. Others are leaning heavily on agency partners to maintain the brands presence. Some have even created a Social Task Force to manage initiatives across capabilities. Any of these can be fine solutions, but do they meet the full needs of your audience and are you measuring the actions of these groups based on their true value?
For now, these initiatives are working, but for global organizations, the meteoric rise of the connected consumer will continue well into the future as most countries have a less than 50% population penetration in Internet usage and the growth trajectory is through the roof. Can the needs of the consumer be met from within the confines of Marketing and PR or is it time to develop a new capability within the organization with a different set of defined success metrics?
While the answer may not be clear (yet), the flexible nature of social media is something that shouldn’t be confined to just one capability within the organization. That’s essentially the foundation behind a Social Business. However, the construct of a social business and how to operationalize is still a major challenge to the vast majority.
Social Media is here to stay and will only grow and evolve as the consumer becomes even more powerful in the conversation and more influential among peers. To truly manage the spectrum of activities, it may be time to consider the development of a Social Operations capability that looks at the impact of this change across the Enterprise. Not just listening and responding, but understanding how to facilitate the appropriate touch points across the organization and what the associated impact will be.
The Social Operations Team would be responsible for Enterprise Social Planning (ESP) and driving efficiencies among resources to maximize the relationship with customers. Instead of siloed social tactics occurring across all capabilities with individual key performance indicators, what is the collective impact of social participation?
Could the formation of such a team prevent the apples-to-oranges comparisons between traditional advertising and digital advertising? Would the value of social participation be more widely understood if viewed across the enterprise?
If the primary objective of social media is to connect with consumers, then success should be defined in the ways social activities impact that relationship. That recent social media program may not have driven the potential views of a 30 second spot, but we’ve seen an increase in brand sentiment and decreased inbound call center inquiries by 10%. Additionally, we saw a 5% increase in job applicants.
Over the past few years, we’ve heard anecdotes similar to those mentioned above, but the infrastructure of many Enterprise businesses do not always allow for increased investment in programs as the added benefits had more of an impact on other capabilities than the investing capability.
Should we consolidate and optimize? Or should we define success at a business level rather than a capability level? How do you feel about a Social Operations team? Do you think Enterprise Social Planning is on the horizon, or is it already here?
Lot’s of questions, but not many answers (yet).
