Whose Job Is Social Media?

Social media marketing is a misnomer because these efforts should not be limited to your organization’s marketing staff. In many companies, marketing departments spearhead social media efforts, but successful execution involves many groups, including sales, customer service, multiple brand or product teams, recruiting, IT, legal, compliance, and partners, such as your affiliates, resellers, and your PR agency (see Figure 2). Because it is your customers and not you driving the conversations on Facebook, you never know where the conversation will go. This means that all hands need to be on deck to continually engage fans and be ready to respond in real time.

Figure 2. Facebook is the ultimate test of an organization’s ability to collaborate, communicate, and coordinate internally and externally across multiple different groups, each of which plays an important role in providing an exceptional customer experience.