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The demand for social media experts in a stand alone role is increasing, but will this specialism always be able to justify a standalone role and will we see an emergence of more social media experts?
Views from the industry are mixed. The more sceptical marketers believe social media will become an integral part of the communications mix, overseen by generalist marketing managers. But opposing views suggest it will become a specialism that grows to such heights that we see a birth of more agencies focused on social media?
Managers are no longer asking, ‘should we use it, the question is now ‘how do we use it’.
Whatever your view, one consistent trend has emerged. Managers are no longer asking, ‘should we use it, the question is now ‘how do we use it’.
Perhaps key to the success of social media experts within an organisation is their ability to measure the ROI from social media spend. Many firms are bringing in specialist agencies and levels of investment remain varied across sectors. As to be expected, firms in the technology and communications space have been early adopters, but more surprisingly the professional services sector have also been quick to maximise new channels to market.
So, with social media still a fact finding discipline for many senior managers, specialists are needing to gain buy in from senior management teams and also educate colleagues on the benefits of social media. This is a great opportunity for technically focused staff to develop presentation skills and persuasion tactics.
In preparation for wider adoption, full mix marketers should get more social media savvy and due to its ever evolving nature, employees need to keep abreast of emerging technologies. It’s fast becoming a discussion point in interviews from more junior roles to marketing director level. Interviewers are also keen to see candidates demonstrate their strategic understanding of social media – their ability to align social media activities with an overall business strategy.
However, social media holds the same challenges as PR. The return can be intangible and success is difficult to measure over short periods of time. So perhaps the road to achieving full social media integration remains long and windy but, if the recruitment market is anything to go by, certainly one that will create new career opportunities for media savvy marketers.
8 Comments
I think 2010 is already seeing a marked increase in the uptake and deployment of Enterprise 2.0. In addition, as I’ve been arguing on my blog, (http://theparallaxview.com), this will transform roles such as PR and internal comms as the new collaborative technologies open up dialogue across the enterprise and provide new ways of working. The question of ROI is still open, but I think a more holistic way of thinking about this is the way forward – don’t try and measure the tools – measure the enterprise & create an enterprise social media balanced scorecard.
From an internal communications perspective this is a bit like using a tool just for the sake of it. There seems to be a bit of panic around the adoption of social media into the communciations mix. Currently many companies do indeed have an (expensive) attitude of ‘how do we use it’ not ’should we use it’ . This action has always seemed reactive in nature to me – sort of buying into the panic.
An understanding of social media is key to avoid being a luddite. However the effective application of it in an organisation from any communications point of view, should be in the first instance understanding your audience. From there it’s a question of determining what they respond to and figuring out what value social media provides for you. Horses for courses not sheep dipping, so to speak.
Nice opening question – something we feel passionately about as practitioners of social media.
We believe in enabling organisations to understand and embed this stuff into their operations themselves rather than paying other people to come in and do it for them. After all, the client is the expert on them
In terms of you exploring how social media will play out in marketing terms – when everyone has the tools and platforms to create and disseminate information globally the traditional ideas of pr and going through gatekeepers (whether that be press, design teams, web developers etc) no longer hold the same weight as before.
Most of this social media stuff should be used to embellish and augment current operations not completely replace it though. Check out how Ford are creating social media press releases (http://ford.digitalsnippets.com/) or how their CEO is taking questions through Twitter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaaKNcovfdQ).
In terms of ROI – google it and you will find better articles than anything I could recite here on that point… the metrics are built into social media to track its impact (or not).
With social media you can now do things cheaper, quicker and better than before… if you don’t wish to then fair enough, just know the world has changed and it’s not turning back…
I’m done…
As other comentators have said Social Media will transform online marketing communications. Not only does it provide unique and challenging channels of communications with a company’s end users, with social media outreach work it will have an impact on traditional Search Engine Optimisation. And this is where the difficulty lies for an organisation’s marketing department, the way social media is going means it crosses many disciplines (PR, SEO, branding, customer services, advertising etc) which is going to be a difficult match for any one marketing individual.
Just as marketers rarely ‘do’ advertising or PR but work closely with an agency building a strong, knowledgable and trusted relationship with them, so too I believe social media will be a close collaborative effort between agency and marketer.
We shouldn’t overstate social media’s importance but it is going to be a significant factor in the future marketing mix, nevertheless it should be approached as one would with existing communications channels such as PR, advertising, online marketing etc. The real difference – and here’s the challenge – is one of timing. Social Media is an ongoing conversation, and remaining up-to-date (i.e. in daily contact) with your audience is crucial, as is responding to events that affect the organisation (e.g. customer service issue). Companies like O2,Vodaphone, and Habitat have come a little unstuck by not responding appropriately and timely to criticism aired via social media channels, or jumping in on conversations where they weren’t invited.
The challenge for the marketer is to use social media channels effectively and responsibly; not jump on bandwagons or think this will be the silver bullet to cure all marketing ills. It will raise as many questions as it answers and that’s going to make the social media journey an interesting – and possibly bumpy – ride for the next 12 months or so.
Thanks. Andy
I think that social media is such a vast and ever changing sector that to manage your social media and to keep up with changing technology it’s a full time occupation. My company have been an early adoptor of social media in the recruitment field (www.ckclinical.co.uk) and we have had to take somebody on full time to manage our social media activities. As for are the effects tangable? To a certain extent they are. Well over 12% of our site traffic comes directly from social media sources. That’s not to mention the effect it is having on brand recognition and value. It’s changing the recruitment Market that’s for sure and I can’t see us staying at the forefront of our Market without a stand alone expert. So for me the job is here to stay………..for now
Great post – thanks for sharing. I introduced the use of Twitter at a Virgin company for service and it has done great things for perception around the brand and online PR in particular.
What’s most exciting for me is when social media is used to engage others, either inside or ‘external’ to an organisation.
I am sensing a maturing in the way social media is being used and the integration into wider strategies is emerging.
While we are on the subject of ROI, it’s good to see Jonathan very easily see a return – lots of cynics are as sceptical about digital engagement as they are about ‘analogue’.
A very interesting post and some great comments. A quick thought from me…I’m a great believer in social media being part of and an evolution of your existing comms approach. I’m always concerned to see talk of creating a separate strategy or a separate team just focusing on social media. To me, it should be fully integrated in to what you’re already doing and be seen more as a (huge) enhancement in how you create meaningful and engaging dialogue. Like Rich Baker, I too introduced twitter to another Virgin company and saw very similar, positive results around brand perception – but more so, around employee advocacy.
A colleague of mine sent me this link, as I promised to read the post and subsequent threads. Being an early adopter of many social media trends – and I’d include mobile phone texting, myspace, facebook, youtube and twitter – I’m yet to be convinced. Being experienced in communications and marketing in both the public and private sectors, from an internal comms perspective I do question whether CEO blogs or tweets and films of annual conferences create any kind of ‘meaningful and engaging dialogue’ for employees as suggested above. E-mail is fully embedded in our culture, at work and home, whereas text messages seem not crossed into the workplace in such a meaningful way. Film has a certain novelty when introduced into organisations and can raise leadership visibility briefly (and subsequent engagement levels). However cynicism can grow quickly as the novelty wears off. Myspace users have dropped off in droves, the facebook and youtube revolution seems now to be stuttering amid a backlash from the media, and general user fatigue. Instant messaging has never caught fire in any organisation I’ve worked in and video-conferencing is about as high tech as it gets in many UK companies. The danger in introducing more communications channels relatively quickly (in the corporate world certainly), is that without a well thought out approach, the audience can quickly become fractured, distracted and at worst disinterested. Until we can conquer the feeling that many of the new developments, as exciting as they are at first, really feel like style over substance, employees will continue to crave genuine dialogue and face to face contact more and more.