Social media strategy leaders: an intro to the series

Hello Readers! This post was first published on Biznology, a great site led at the time by IBM Press author and superstar consultant Mike Moran. The site is now led by a great group called JEM LLC. This post has been updated to include the latest information on the rising discipline of social media marketing. This is my first post here on Marketing Strategy Leader – the introduction to a series spotlighting leaders in social media strategy. The interviews in this series were conducted in 2016 but these leaders – representing finance, higher education,  marketing technology, pharmaceuticals and communications industries – are up to amazing things still and I’ll highlight those new developments in each post. Let’s start this conversation by getting to a core definition of what social media is – Wikipedia does a great job here:

Social media are interactive computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks.^[1]

The work and the job titles emerge

The “social media manager” job title was not common until recently. But these days, organizations have a real business need to put someone in charge of listening to social media. They need to have someone responding to inbound inquiries on social media. Organizations need someone (or a team of someones) to support business goals by developing, executing, optimizing and measuring the impact of organic and paid social media strategies. Industries and organizations have grown their social media work in many different ways and in this series we will see some unique examples across a wide group of industries. In my own experience as a digital marketer in the education space responsibilities for social media started as an “add on” to my existing work in the digital marketing mix. I raised my hand and said “pick me” to lead early social media initiatives at Pearson. Then I led a social media marketing team. Now I support organizations in developing their own strategic plans for social media and starting in January I will be teaching college students about social media marketing.

The cool stuff – innovation in organizations

Social media continues to be an evolving landscape – new features and new networks launch monthly. When evolving technologies, especially communication technologies, are used by prospects and customers, organizations have to do more than just be there. Why? Because communication with prospects and customers, when designed strategically, can lead to opportunity. Many different business functions communicate with prospects and customers along their journey: sales, pr, customer support, and, of course, marketing, may all be part of the conversation. The opportunity for innovative work by people in these areas is simply awesome. How can social media be used to positively impact the organization and support its goals? Someone (or a group of someones) has to build a strategy and test its impact. So which department “owns” social media strategy?

Where does social media strategy live?

In order for organizations to facilitate innovate work in social media, they need to bring in the right type of leadership to drive it. You need an innovator, an explorer: someone willing to fail, brush themselves off, and get back to work. This blog series- social media strategy leaders- is dedicated to those people. These folks are my own colleagues, and they have grown alongside social media and turned it into their discipline. Social media leaders are now hiring, training, and mentoring the next generation of social media managers. They are a diverse group of people with unique backgrounds: some rising within industries, others coming from consulting or agency backgrounds. I hope you are as excited as I am to learn what cool strategies these leaders are developing to support their organizations. Watch for our first interview coming soon!

This post was first published at biznology.com.