Social media is a brilliant, modern marketing tool for any business. It allows you to engage with your customers, monitor your reputation, generate sales, create new marketing strategies and keep up to date with the latest happenings from your industry.
However, many business owners are not familiar enough with social media to run it themselves. Therefore, they often think that the best person to be doing the job is a junior, because they are seen as the youngest and therefore the most ‘down with the kids’.
However, by placing one of your biggest marketing outlets in the hands of, what effectively is, an amateur – you could be making a huge mistake.
Although a junior colleague may be the most adept with social media, they may not have the business knowledge to understand what they should and shouldn’t be putting out there in the public domain. Then again, some do, so it really is a judgement call.
So who should you be putting in charge of your social media?
Customer Services
Allowing a customer services department to manage your Twitter account will ensure great customer care. It will mean that the people engaging with your brand will feel that they are being listened to and that will encourage brand loyalty and good word of mouth.
Marketing
One thing that customer services may not do is actively try to increase your following on social media channels – that is where the marketing department comes in! By allowing your marketing staff to take the reins on your social media, you are allowing them to utilise it in order to develop marketing strategies.
Sales
Then again, if the sales department took control of your social media, they would be able to put their sales ‘spin’ into tweets, which could then secure you more leads and potential customers. Sales people know how to attract customers, however they may be quite blatant about it, as opposed to dressing it up in a PR way.
So, after deliberating, we are still not clear on who you should be putting in control.
All departments offer different advantages, so why not let all of them get involved?
Allowing all departments to get involved in the social media will mean that queries and opportunities for all departments will get picked up and it will provide a better-rounded look to your company.
However, although you are encouraging all departments to get involved in the social media, you should only allow a few people from each department to manage it, so that there is a constant style to your posts.
Getting the right balance of experienced and new employees is really the key. The younger generation will be more at home using social media, but the more experienced know what works and what doesn’t. While you don’t want to hurt feelings, you do have to ensure you have the right selection of people. If someone on the team is not clicking with the others or bringing your social media campaign down, it is best for the company to move them to somewhere where they will be more productive.
Good points, Richard. Though, age aside, sometimes it comes down to commitment level and “getting the job done.”