Who Should Manage Your Social Media Marketing?

During the last few months the attendees at our workshops and seminars have been asking this question, a lot:

"Who should manage our social media marketing?"

I immediately reply: "Webbed Marketing!" and ask for PO numbers.

Kidding, in fact that is just the kind of thing giving social media consulting a bad name right now. Just as there were a lot of hacks in website design 10 years ago, a lot of overnight SEO experts 5 years ago, today there seems to be a proliferation of "Social Media Consultants."  A recent USA Today poll revealed that there are more Social Media Consultants in the US than there are Republicans. And last weekend I was driving through rural Ohio and saw this:

 

In an effort to help wade through the many options of social media consulting, I spoke with some respected social media folks and got their take on the question: "Who Should Manage Your Social Media?"

Your Public Relations Firm Should  I have a bit of a bias here. In the 90s I left Bowling Green with my newly minted Public Relations degree started working at a dot com startup in the energy industry. I thought it would be a good idea to pitch people on Geocities who wrote about energy topics to get them to cover what we were doing at Energy.com. No one called it social media marketing then, it was just applying public relations and media relations skills to the Internet. I have had both Internet marketing gurus and public relations experts tell me that your PR firm should not be in social media and that the two tactics are fundamentally different. I disagree. In both media relations and social media communications, your PR firm is working to influence an influencer to say good things to an audience. I asked social media maven and PR pro Lara Kretler,Associate Vice President at Fahlgren Mortine, about this. Here is what she told me:

"Working with an established agency for social media strategy makes sense because of the talent, expertise and resources we can bring to the table. For example, we have tools and relationships with vendors that a solo practitioner or smaller agency simply wouldn't have access to. We also surround each client with the best minds for the job, bringing together a good mix of senior and junior staffers for ongoing brainstorms. An agency with a strong reputation for great ideas, client service and results-driven, award-winning campaigns is also in the best position to attract, recruit and retain the very best talent from around the country. Ultimately, whether you're talking about traditional PR or social media and PR2.0, it's all about the people."

Your SEO Firm Should. After all, it all is about online traffic and search engine rankings, right? At least, that is what a lot of SEOs will tell you. And to a large degree this holds water. A strong social media presence means credible and diverse in bound links, which is great for search rankings. That said, I do find that some SEOs view social media with the same analytical eye they use in writing title tags and miss the human aspect. I would argue that social media is about human relations and has a secondary benefit with search engines, not the other way around.

A Specialized Consultant Should. Bob was laid off from the car lot, heard a story on NPR about Facebook and is now a social media consultant? Okay, beware of Bob. But, there are some great consultants focusing on social media who have proven their worth. Here in Columbus there is a guy named Lewis Howes who is the man when it comes to LinkedIn. You would have no trouble finding a whole lot of people who would endorse his work. I asked Lewis why his clients like him so much, he explained:

"The reason individuals should work with a specialized consultant with regards to using LinkedIn is because the opportunity cost for learning how to effectively use the networking tool to achieve your professional goals is much greater when one spends hours watching video tutorials, reading blogs, and going through the etiquette mistakes of not knowing how to contact others, or become actively involved.  Using a specialized consultant will be more beneficial because they can work with you on a personal level and provide specific instructions on how to achieve your goals.  An individual also usually charges less than a larger firm, and is usually more personal."

My advice in working with an individual consultant? Check references and look at their past employment history. Having 1,000 followers on Twitter doesn't mean a person can help your company build a social media communications plan.

You Should. Trisha Jackson with AAA is a hit among the Ohio Web crowd. We all think that she is so cool because she has led her company in adopting social media, and is seeing the results of her work.  In Trisha's own words:

"Grassroots social media efforts work well for brands with limited budgets, those who may have complex business models, or those with rules and regulationsthat prevent them from implementing and executing large scale strategies and tactics.  It boils down to having the right people within your organization who are passionate about building relationships and educated about doing so in the online space.  After all, your customers are doing business with your people first and foremost, not your logo. 

These employees are going to intimately know your business inside and out as well as who your customers are and what they expect from you.  Consider the ramp up time and monetary resources it would take to bring a large PR agency or independent consultant on board to learn about your business and your customers.  To put it into perspective, think about what it takes to do this with a brand new employee.  It's a very similar process.

For AAA Ohio Auto Club, we are faced with all of the issues I've listed above. AAA is a federation of 50+ clubs across the country. In Ohio, we have several (I think we're down to 8 now with recent mergers) but we all have our own Executives, Board of Directors and own strategies as do the other clubs. We have National rules that prevent us from actively marketing to anyone outside of our territory boundaries which proves very difficult in the area of social media considering that it's an tool that doesn't recognize those boundaries.  In terms of complex business models, we have 6 major business lines, all very distinct from one another:  Membership, Travel, Insurance, Automotive, Show Your Card and Save, and Financial Services.  This is why building personal relationships is so important.   My network gets to know ME and as my relationships progress, I can help them answer questions or solve issues with products or services my business has to offer." 

Comments

[Dragos ILINCA]

Social media is, a lot of the times, about showing your true DNA as a company. It makes sense that someone in the company should do it.

Also, a lot of companies take the reactive approach: "We have to be on the lookout and if something bad happens, let's respond."

I personally think it's way more important to take the proactive approach, get involved in the community, contribute and show who you really are.

PR people are good at what they do in the traditional world. The social media world is way more liquid and informal, and I'm not sure many PR people or social media consultants can necessarily play the part on your behalf the right way.

[Tony Sena]

"You Should"! Nobody knows your business better than yourself. At the same time, you need to be organized in order to conduct your business while trying to build your business online. This is the tough part, the balancing act!

[seo firm Los Angeles]

Social media is information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It's a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologue into dialog and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal and business.

-faith-