Facebook and Twitter and Vine…oh my! With new social media platforms popping up every day, even the most digitally savvy business can get overwhelmed by the number of tools it must populate, monitor, and manage. Your company may have a dedicated social media manager or even a digital marketing team to keep tabs on your fans and followers. But how is that working? Is the individual or group constantly on the clock, posting new content, answering questions, and thanking followers for retweets? Even if they’re doing a great job keeping your community happy, I’m sure they can use some help.
This week, social media monitoring leader HootSuite released a new application for the Chrome browser. Dubbed “HootSuite Assignments,” the plug-in allows social media community managers to delegate certain responsibilities to other members of their team.
As a social media manager for a business, you should already be very knowledgeable about all sides of the company. However, you often get questions and comments that might need a second pair of eyes.
For example, a Twitter follower may ask you about job openings. Rather than simply sharing a link to the “Careers” page and hoping for the best, you can take things a step further by sharing the tweet using the internal plug-in and asking your HR manager to respond with more info. It also cuts you out as the unnecessary “middle man.”
Implementing this tool is a step in the right direction for not only HootSuite but also its 4.5 million business users. “Social Media” is not a department that can be siloed off from the rest of the company. It’s a communication channel that needs to be intertwined throughout all divisions of a company. Below are some teams you may want to get more involved with your social media strategy (if you haven’t already).
- Marketing: Marketers were some of the earliest adopters of social media tools, and they continually prove how powerful the channel is for building buzz around a brand and driving well-qualified leads to your website.
- Customer Support: When customers have a bad experience, they naturally want to voice their complaints, and it means a lot to them when they are acknowledged. The customer support team should be combing newsfeeds for questions and concerns. Each complaint should be addressed and, if needed, taken offline. The point is to make your customers realize that they have a voice.
- Human Resources: Social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook are powerful recruiting tools. The HR department should be posting the latest job openings and responding to career inquiries. It helps to have people familiar with the inner workings of the application process to serve as an accessible resource that community managers can easily work with.
- Public Relations: PR professionals should be monitoring social media chatter to address minor complaints before they become full-blown crises. We’ve seen big-name companies flounder with social media PR, but others use it effectively.
In the past, the marketing and PR departments have “owned” social media, but as the platforms become more widespread and varied, it has become increasingly beneficial for all employees to be fluent with the art of a tweet and Facebook best practices. Tools like HootSuite Assignments encourage collaboration and a team approach to addressing all business needs through social media channels. These tools can also enable a business to more meaningfully integrate social media into its everyday operations.
It’s great if you have a dedicated community manager for your business’s social profiles, but why not get others involved to make sure that the right experts are responding to the right posts?
This approach allows your business to have multiple eyes and ears, and work smarter, not harder, on social media initiatives. Ultimately, it allows companies to better serve their increasingly tech-savvy customers.
Need some strategic guidance on how to align your social media team? Give us a call at 919-858-6914 or shoot us an email. We’d love to have a conversation with you about how to make the most of your social media initiatives.
