This morning I posed a question on Twitter asking people to suggest which corporate division- marketing, PR, Brand, HR, Customer Services or IT - they thought "owned" social media.
Of the responses, some stood out. Melissa Attree suggested that it cannot be defined to just one of these departments and that it should perhaps sit as a separate unit in possession of the correct skill set (via Walter). Matt said that social media sits in some or all of the aforementioned divisions and pointed me to his own post on the matter inspired by Jim Tobin of Ignite.
In my opinion while internally everyone can take responsibility for it, social media should be "owned" by corporate communications and should operate as a strategic online communications unit that functions alongside brand, marketing, public relations and internal comms - the custodians of the brand - specifically because of, as Mandy de Waal points out, social media's direct and indirect reputation and brand implications.Â
I say this not because most of my clients, past and present, are in this corporate division but rather because social media, like any other online communications channel is a communications-focused activity and requires an understanding on not only how to use social media (and online) as part of the communications mix but also how to produce, market and measure it effectively.Â
This said, different companies operate different based on a wide variety of factors. So, with this in mind, what do you think? Where should social media sit?
