Posts Tagged ‘corporate social media’

The Importance of a Social Media Support System

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February 5th, 2009

The success of a company’s social media effort does not always depend implementation, it depends on how much support the people implementing actually have from their managers and executives. If an employee at a company has an idea for a social media campaign but does not have the full support of management to implement it and try out ideas, then the campaign probably won’t work to well. If a senior manager wants to write a blog post but knows that the C-level execs aren’t 100% behind the effort then the senior manager probably won’t write that blog post. If a company does not have a solid social media support system then it will crumble.

If we look at a simple company structure it would look something like this:

Executives
Managers
Non-managers

If you were to think of this structure as a building then you can visualize how one non-supported element can cause the whole building to be unstable. Let’s take a look at this support system in a bit more detail starting at the non-manager level.

Non-managers

Oftentimes (not always) these are the folks who implement or explore the social media space. They don’t have to be new hires or interns, just folks who are passionate about what they do and believe in the products and services their company offers. In order for a non-manager to succeed in the social media space he/she is going to need support both from other non-managers and from the mid-level managers. As a non-manager this person needs to help explain and make a case for why the company should begin exploring social media. The non-manager is usually in charge of all of the customer interaction, this is the person on twitter, facebook, etc reaching out to people and building relationships.

Managers

As a manager who is on board with the social media effort, it is this person’s job to support the non-manager. This means understanding the risks and rewards that are involved with the social media space and understanding how to get involved to generate results. The manager needs to empower the non-manager brand evangelists to engage in customer conversations and interactions. However, the manager cannot encourage anyone or give the go ahead to really get involved in social media without the senior managers approval. The manager should handle the budgeting and allocation of resources for a social media campaign.

Executives

Executives basically want to see a positive dollar sign from the social media marketing efforts. How much did the company save/generate as a result of social media? The executives ultimately decide on the fate of the social media efforts, they have the ability to add/kill the budget for campaigns. These folks are also oftentimes the least educated on social media and usually do not understand that it’s not always possible to assign a dollar amount to a conversation. They don’t know what twitter is or don’t understand the value of building relationships with users.

The executives need the most support out of all of the other groups and rely on the non-managers and managers to explain the tools/strategies/risks/benefits of social media. The executives also need to show a strong level of support for the managers who can in turn show a strong level of support for the non-managers.

Anyone can get involved in social media, the manger, the executive, etc, however, as mentioned before it’s important that a strong support system exists. If a manger wants to create a twitter account then he needs to know that the executive will support his decision; this all comes back to social media education and how it is propagated across the company.

Does your company have a social media support system in place? What is your company social media structure?

TAGS: corporate social media, social media education, social media for companies, social media support system, supporting employees for social media

Social Media, the Obvious and Not so Obvious Issues

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January 12th, 2009

Social media success can mean many different things to many different corporations (and people) but ultimately success should be assessed by the company itself. It’s always easy to talk about what another company needs to improve on or work on. People often ask me (as I’m sure they ask you) what a company can do to improve its social media efforts or if a certain social media campaign is successful. I can always say “company X should have done Y” or “company X was not successful.” I can say that, but so can you, and so can anyone else. That’s because oftentimes, we look at the obvious.

If a company launches a social media campaign that “they” feel was successful, well then guess what, it was successful; regardless of what anybody else says. As outsiders or observers it is always easier to critique and analyze something, I do this frequently. There is nothing wrong with voicing opinions or conjectures, but I think we should always take into consideration the source of the information (being a member of the company or not). I can share my experiences, ideas, and theories; but sometimes saying “company X should join twitter” isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Don’t believe me? Pick your favorite fortune 1000 company and go try to convince them to join twitter, it’s a long and oftentimes tedious process. I suppose one of the things I’m trying to change in the social media world is this “process” or mindset of traditional marketing.

We have to remember that corporations and businesses don’t function like individuals do. I can do anything I want with my social media and online presence, but do you think Lenovo can? Probably not. A lot of the large corporations have far more to think about than I do when it comes to implementing a social media strategy. These corporation have far more to gain but also far more to lose. David Churbuck had a great post on this a few months ago. David pointed out that Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester was giving out thumbsucking advice and was stating the obvious on corporate blogging. David then went on to write a guest post for Jeremiah and provided an excellent example of a corporate blogging scenario. The exchange and subsequent posts are actually quite interesting and certainly worth a read.

All of this comes down to understanding the simple and obvious issues that a company has to deal with and the internal (not always public) issues that a company has to deal with. Both are important but oftentimes we are only privy to the obvious and thus that is what we can comment on and critique. Every company is different and is faced with it’s own set of challenges and obstacles.

It’s always great to keep the conversations, ideas, and theories going, and I encourage that. However, let’s remember that more often than not we only see a part of the bigger picture and sometimes things aren’t as black and white as they seem. Social media is still growing and evolving and I think we can speed up and continue this process if we really make an effort to understand the challenges and obstacles that some of these large corporations are faced with. I encourage and ask that representatives of corporations continue to make public the social media fears, objections, and challenges that they are faced with.

Am I way off base here? What’s your take on all of this?

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TAGS: corporate social media, david churbuck, jeremiah owyang, obvious social media, social media issues