Flicking through the Evening Standard earlier this week, I came across an article which pronounced that the social media manager is the next ‘must have’ for any company or brand.
What or who prompted this? Sarah Palin. She has successfully used social media to rally her supporters but then she got embroiled in the aftermath of the shooting of US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona earlier this month. She demonstrated how the coming together of social media and the long lasting quality of online information means we must be very careful of what we say on these channels. For something that you said months or years ago could come back to bite you.
Without even having a social media manager in place there are a considerable number of companies and brands that are already benefitting from social media networking. The likes of Facebook, Twitter and Linked In are useful tools for reaching out to a wide audience. But if you embark on a social media campaign you cannot expect it to grow over night; every company’s social media presence will take some time to build up, and will certainly require time and dedication that those with an alternative day job will find difficult to devote.
There are now some 200 major business in the US which employ such a person so I embarked upon a quick Google search to find there are almost as many here in the UK, and plenty of adverts from companies requiring support in this area.
But, who are these people and what exactly do they do? Quite simply they are online reputation managers who operate in the complex, and relatively new, social media world. Hiring in someone new is not a necessity. You could use someone from your communications and marketing team or ask your PR agency for support.
Once you have someone in place you can put a social networking plan into action. They will need to keep a track of your market audience online and devise strategies according to a situation, as well as ensuring your presence at online events and engage in relevant conversations. But perhaps most importantly they need to be aware of how your online audience is more switched-on than any other audience you have and respond with urgency to any queries. An active social media networking team can prevent and handle crisis situations, if they arise at all.
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