In the past, it was easy for businesses or brands to segment different types of outreach or communication into departments. Marketing and public relations often operated separately from one another; human resources, customer service and technical support all operated in their own distinct branches. While overlap did occur, for the most part, actions and activities adhered to a set organizational structure.
But how do you classify social media? Because it can be used in so many different ways, social media fits into many traditional departmental hierarchies. Is social media primarily a product of marketing and/or public relations? Is it ultimately about customer service and support? Does its technical nature put it under the auspices of the IT department and its policies?
This is a loaded question with no clear-cut answer. We decided to talk to some social media professionals and consultants to find out their thoughts on what department ultimately "owns" social media.
Marketing and PR
Social media is a natural extension of both marketing and public relations. We've written extensively about the use of social media across both disciplines and the impact social media or social elements can have on an overall campaign.
In its November 2009 report on Social Media and Online PR, Econsultancy found that of the companies surveyed, 35% of companies managed their social media resources under the digital marketing team. PR/communications departments managed 21% of respondents, with 19% saying that social media was managed by a cross-functional team.
Social media has proven to be a solid marketing tool, so it isn't surprising that many companies associate the two with one another.
Likewise, the wide and distributed nature of social media makes it a great platform for public relations or communications teams. We've seen how useful social media can be as a source of news, and increasingly individuals are turning to social media channels to get information directly from a brand or company.
Danny Wong, the co-founder and Lead Evangelist for Blank Label says that PR should own social media because that department knows "what the appropriate messages are for the company's followers."
In his role as Lead Evangelist/PR, Wong manages all social media outreach. However, he notes that ultimately, the social media strategy should start from the very top.
Furthermore, marketing departments are often comprised of those who understand social media the best. As Todd Kelly told us on Twitter:
While social media continues to expand into more and more areas, for many businesses, it is still ultimately a part of marketing or public relations.
Is it Customer Service or is it PR?
One area that social media has started to intersect with is customer service. Thanks to programs like @ComcastCares, social media is increasingly becoming useful as a customer service tool. Best Buy is another company extensively using Twitter (Twitter) as a customer service tool via its Twelpforce program.
But is this really customer service in the traditional sense? Well, it depends on the implementation. As Chuck Tanowitz, principal at social media and PR firm Fresh Ground, notes:
"While internally this may be a customer service move, externally it's customer service blended with PR, since customer service problems are now being handled in the open, not in the relative privacy of a phone call."
The public-facing nature of the customer service interaction does make it more PR than strict customer service. However, traditional CRM tools like Salesforce have now integrated with Twitter and Facebook (Facebook) in such a way that real customer service tickets and cases can be created based off of those interactions.
Thus, while the conversation may start more publicly, the full customer service department and procedures can take over off the public feed and within the existing CRM system. This is actually a great way that companies can augment their existing customer service and support strategies through the use of social media.
It's About Everyone
Natalie Ebig Scott, who works in PR for TechSmith, believes that no one should own social media and that it should be a company-wide affair.
She notes that with the company's recent Snagit10 release, members from marketing, public relations, development, training and support all worked together to spread to the word and use social media during the launch.
As social media becomes useful in more and more areas, we expect to see many companies and brands adopt this approach.
Of course, within each department, how social media resources are delegated and how they are managed can still become an issue.
Why This Matters
So, why does classification matter? In truth, depending on the business or the brand, what department social media falls under may not end up being of importance. However, there are still some very valid reasons for trying to figure out what department ultimately owns social media.
For instance, as many larger organizations are finding out, it is becoming necessary to create a social media policy — not just for official company communication, but for personal communication by employees (who make it clear they work for the company in their profile).
Having a departmental ownership can help guide those policies. Depending on the context of the communications, there may be some accounting and reporting procedures that are legally mandated by the SEC and that might fall under the purview of corporate communications or human relations.
Sometimes, social media departments don't even own social media. While researching this story, we spoke with several social media managers who initially wanted to share their thoughts on social media ownership, only to be told by higher-ups that social media practices couldn't be discussed on the record.
In other words, even though these companies have individuals holding positions with "social media" in the title, corporate policy prohibited them from speaking about it. The number of companies that hold this view actually surprised us, and makes it clear that ultimately, the answer to "who owns social media" might be the legal
http://mashable.com/2010/05/17/social-media-ownership
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