Last week I was quoted in an
Adweek article that discussed how large Fortune 100 companies are starting to hire
new kinds of leaders to help them navigate the social media space. Talking about
Ford,
Intel and
Pepsi, the article discussed the trend towards hiring social media czars that coordinate social media efforts across the organization within and beyond the marketing departments. I believe it is just a matter of time before most organizations either have dedicated roles like this or push their employees (or specially identified employees) to go through a social media boot camp of sorts.
They way consumers communicate and interact has fundamentally changed. Recognizing that I probably sound like one of those social media evangelists, I do feel that organizations need to adapt as well. Whereas some departments need to adapt just to survive (Corporate Communications and Human Resources are the most obvious ones), others don't need to change but can benefit immensely by harnessing the social influence and the wisdom of the crowds.
And not just the organizations, but the agencies need to change too. Whether it be by encouraging every employee to become experts in the social media space or by hiring or identifying social media champions from within, they do need to identify new leaders. And these leaders need to think in terms of how their agency's service offerings must evolve to keep pace with the ever evolving social web. Ask me, this is something that I worry about everyday.
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