Who should look after social media activity?
Posted by Anna | Filed under Blog, Thinking
This is a question I was asked earlier on in the week by a fellow social media-er and, do you know what? I had to stop and think carefully about it. It’s a tough one.
Initially I thought is was a “PR Agency vs. Digital Agency” question, but then I thought some more… Obviously a dedicated social media agency should be a key player in this debate, but what about simply doing it in-house? Is there available resource for this instance? Do they know what they are doing when it comes to social media activity? In some cases, this is fine and can work very well (see our friends at Glasses Direct and their Twitter efforts) but could doing it in-house be potentially damaging if not executed or managed correctly? Should brands and services employ someone specifically to look after social media in-house? Would there be enough work for this person? Could there be too much? Many, many questions and debates around this subject…
The person who initially asked me the question then went on to discuss what exactly comes under the ’social media’ umbrella? Sometimes, people forget that ’social media’ is not just Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Communities live in many different spaces online – can you ever reach them all? This throws up further questions over how you prioritise one channel over another…
Personally, I believe that the person (or people) responsible for social media depends entirely on the circumstances, the brand/service, what they are looking to achieve, what their audience are doing online and a whole host of other important contributing factors.
Obviously, in an ideal world, using a dedicated social media agency is going to be the best solution because it is in their blood; it’s what they know, what they do, what they live and breathe. But we don’t always live in an ideal society so maybe it’s not always the answer?
Either way, don’t go into social media marketing blind. So many brands and services have done this and made royal mess ups (Habitat’s Twitter fail, anyone?) whilst others have been far too half-hearted and the efforts are wasted and pointless.
Don’t waste an opportunity. Don’t be pointless.
Tags: pr, Social Media, social media agency
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