Social media roles

Social Media Roles

Funnily enough it is often determining where social media should sit within an organisation that is one of the biggest barriers for companies adopting it.

Above is a clever little graphic that I have seen posted in a few places on the web over the last couple of days (strangely it isn’t attributed to anyone, but I found it here) that goes some way to explaining where and how to integrate.

What I like most about this graphic is the simple way it breaks down the multiple departments where social media can and should fit and the responsibilities for those departments.

Of course each organisation would need to tweak this according to their company structure, but this is a damn good template with which to start that process.

Missing for me is the HR department and also the product development departments.

HR should be involved to answer reactive questions related to recruitment and should also be using social media to proactively fill roles.

Product development should be involved to receive feedback on products and services and also to crowd source ideas for new products.

What do you think? Anything else missing, or worth editing?

servantofchaos

Social media seriously touches every part of your organisation. From experience, this means that you end up with social media silos within your business. The challenge is mobilising all these smart folks in a way that helps them be "socially active" within your business. Strange but true.
http://www.gautamblogs.com Gautam Ghosh

I agree that HR departments should be more involved in social media roles, but unfortunately HR departments are risk averse and late adopters of technology to leverage such tools. Personally I believe that Marketing , Customer Support and HR should be the most active users of social media within the organization
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Gautam Ghosh, Tiphereth Gloria, jen frahm, Geoff Wilson, Matthew Gain and others. Matthew Gain said: Social media roles http://goo.gl/fb/tVYWY [...]
http://www.jenniferfrahm.com Jennifer Frahm

What you have identified as missing is the internal social media roles (as most of these focus on the external). So, yes, HR, NPD, Technology, Change Management and Internal Comms are all areas that could all do with a social role. I call it the e-change agent, and the role can sit in any of these places but the role is to encourage use of enterprise collaborate platforms and help people connect internally. But great find and thoughts, thanks!
http://twitter.com/Bingbird Bingbird

Hi, great to see you are distributing your wisdom from afar. This is useful stuff for us marketers and yes the product manager/planner/development roles definitely need to be considered as they can be authentic voices behind the what/why. Cheers Matthew
http://matthewgain.com Matthew Gain

Hey there – thanks for dropping by and congrats on the progress Bing is making! You're dead right about authentic voices. Plus people love hearing from those involved in the creation of a product or service rather than those simply responsible for marketing it.
http://matthewgain.com Matthew Gain

You're right I didn't include internal comms and they should be a definite consideration – thanks for your comment and insightful thoughts.
http://matthewgain.com Matthew Gain

Plenty of examples of HR getting involved though, so hopefully this will change over time.I think you should include PR in your group of active users. It is PR people who have responsibility for the reputation management of a brand. PR should be monitoring what people are saying and engaging at appropriate times to ensure that reputation is upheld and improved where possible.
http://matthewgain.com Matthew Gain

Thanks for your comment Gavin.The challenge then is ever expanding those silos then so they encompass a wider percentage of the business? I think that is what you are saying right?
servantofchaos

Not quite. You end up with social media becoming a part of the silo – not cross-functional. This means for large companies, establishing social networks within the business that facilitate a socially collaborative environment. It's like an internal social network for social networkers. It's not a problem for small companies, but when you have thousands or hundreds of thousands of employees, it can be.
http://twitter.com/phillohren Phill Ohren

Great find Matt. I can't believe nobody has attributed it either…. kind of odd. I agree with you with regards to HR being involved. We always advertise our positions in SM, and naturally about a million recruiters jump on them…. Again, great post!
http://blog.aliahpr.com/2010/05/12/social-media-and-pr-links-du-jour/ Social Media and PR Links du Jour « Aliah Public Relations

[...] Social Media Roles – Matthew Gain examines social media roles in an organization. Where does your responsibilities lie? [...]
http://matthewgain.com Matthew Gain

Makes sense. I came across this on Forrester today as well, which you might be interested in reading. http://blogs.forrester.com/mary_beth_kemp/10-05…..
http://matthewgain.com Matthew Gain

Makes sense. I came across this on Forrester today as well, which you might be interested in reading. http://blogs.forrester.com/mary_beth_kemp/10-05…..
http://matthewgain.com Matthew Gain

Thanks Phil – yeah those recruiters are pretty savvy on some parts of the social media mix aren't they. Constantly frustrates me though that I get contacted via LinkedIn for roles in the UK. It would only take them two seconds to review my profile and realise I am now in Australia…
http://matthewgain.com Matthew Gain

Thanks Phil – yeah those recruiters are pretty savvy on some parts of the social media mix aren't they. Constantly frustrates me though that I get contacted via LinkedIn for roles in the UK. It would only take them two seconds to review my profile and realise I am now in Australia…