When you think of social media roles, chances are you think of a community manager or the oh-so-generic “social media manager”, which is usually some function of the marketing department managing strictly social media programs. But there are loads of other potential roles that can integrate or represent social media alongside other business areas.

Considering these is one of the primary ways to really integrate and entrench social media and its implications throughout the business, not just isolated in the communications department. Let’s take a look at what I mean.

Social Phone Operator

At Radian6, we have folks that help us man the front lines of what we call our Listening Grid. They’re responsible for manning the dashboard, picking up the alerts, and routing posts that require engagement or attention to the right people on the community, support, or account teams. In the case of mature organizations, this can easily be a full-time role, but for companies just getting started in social media, it can probably be part of someone (or several people’s) jobs.

Existing Roles that might incorporate this: customer support specialists, tech-savvy receptionists, department assistants or coordinators

Lead Generation

Yes, there are leads making themselves known in social media. By listening carefully to the discussions around your brand, competition, or specific market or industry, you can spot when people are seeking out the kind of products or services you provide. We call this Listening at the Point Of Need. There’s also plenty of opportunity to just track down where your prospects are present in social media, and start contributing and participating in the discussions they’re having to get acquainted in a non-threatening, friendly way.

These can even be more junior roles (if overseen by someone who understands the social space), wrapped into other kinds of lead generation activity like research or direct response programs.

Existing roles that might incorporate this: sales coordinators, sales assistants, community coordinators, marketing coordinators, development assistants

Social Business Development

Hush with you that social media can’t be good for B2B (I’ve been doing social media in B2B for two years and it’s working just fine, thank you). Yesterday, we just took people to the golf course or dinner to get to know them more intimately. Now, geography isn’t an issue, and we can have a meaningful conversation with a prospect via Twitter, or make an initial connection in the comments on our blog. (Remember, the tools are what you make of them).

If your prospects are out there using forums, blogs, social networks, or anywhere you can have a discussion, you can supplement your offline business development with some great online touchpoints.

Existing roles that might incorporate this: community managers, sales/business development professionals, account managers, development or fundraising pros, client service teams

Social Customer Service & CRM

Perhaps the most obvious role is that of dedicated customer service for social media channels. Whether that’s a Twitter fleet or a blog or forum posse, you can dedicate resources to handling customer service issues in online environment and either solving them directly, or getting them to more efficient and thorough existing channels.

You also have the opportunity to add social media channels to the arsenal of client and account management. And yes, this can be one part of a community role, but folks in your account, support or service departments with an interest in social media can also be outstanding resources.

Existing roles that might incorporate this: customer service or support roles of any kind, client services, account management

Internal Community Manager

It might be obvious to segment your community managers’ responsibilities into specific markets or verticals you serve, depending on the complexity of your company or organization. But what might be less obvious is that you have an internal community that needs support, too, namely your employees and team members. Having someone dedicated to listening to them, creating content, and providing a bridge to management and other areas of the organization can be a valuable consideration.

Existing roles that might incorporate this: human resources or training/professional development roles, internal communications

Social Logistics/Operations Managers

The social media work doesn’t always have to be on the front lines. For companies deploying more robust social media programs, there are information technology needs/requirements, guidelines and policies to be written and maintained, teams to manage and coordinate in varying disciplines, and budgets to manage. Perhaps you have staff that uses social media personally but not professionally, or they have an interest but on the more strategic side, rather than being out there engaging on their own. You might consider how to give some of the operational responsibilities to folks with those skills.

Existing roles that might incorporate this: operations managers, IT professionals, managers of departments engaged in social media

Analysts

You may or may not already have a research or analyst department, but there’s a whole slew of insights that come through the social media sphere. Looking closely at the data and extracting some key indicators and ensuing recommendations is what can really take your social media efforts from surface-scraping to wired into the business.

Existing roles that might incorporate this: data analysts, project/department managers with analytical skills

There are undoubtedly more, and I’m sure I’ve missed some potential matches in the existing roles.

But does this get you thinking? Are you experimenting with integrating social stuff into roles inside your company, or do you have ideas? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

image by David Spender

In my previous posts on, I pointed out some good and some bad on the social media job front. A few asked what I thought social media jobs should look like, so I’ll do my best. But I’m not going to write this like a typical job description, because I think the content is more important than the format.

Social media-exclusive jobs are okay for now, as foundation building for companies needing to learn the ins and outs, understand intent and strategy, and educate their internal folks. But eventually, these kinds of jobs will fall by the wayside (or at least evolve) when social media becomes part of each and every role in one way or another, perhaps with specialists that have particular experience in application of the tools within their roles. (Think of it this way: we don’t have email managers that do nothing but. The *use* of email and digital stuff touches every role, whether it’s inward or outward facing).

Attributes

In my experience, the folks who grok social media best have a lot of attributes in common:

Curiosity: The desire to explore new ideas, in detail, and without specific direction to do so. Curiosity about the intersection of human interactions and technology is a specific aspect that’s helpful, and a passion for the potential of the work and the organization’s purpose is key to instilling that in others, both internally and externally.

Innovation: Ignore the buzzy nature of this word for a moment and concentrate on what it really means: the introduction of something new. Social media implementation requires new approaches to existing processes, both internally and externally, including communication, strategy, execution, measurement, reporting, and training. (This needs to be carefully balanced with realism and pragmatism, too, but I’d rather rein someone in than have to prod them forward.)

Motivation: Folks thriving in social media jobs are self-starters, often capable of creating clarity from a bit of chaos, and devising their own marching orders without constant direction or specific instructions. If you can instill and nurture this in others, too, so much the better.

Collaboration: “That’s not my job” and “get out of my sandbox” don’t play well in these kinds of roles. They’re far too new to be that rigid, and they definitely need cooperation and work with others across the organization.

Translation: In many companies right now, we need people that have the patience and clarity of explanation to teach others about the impact of the social web, and who work well across departments within a corporate culture. These roles, most critically, need to know how to work and educate across silos, in the terms that make sense to the relevant colleagues.

Humility: The goal here is to elevate the entire company and your colleagues as contributing, valuable members of the community and leaders in the industry. Not you and your “personal brand”.

Diplomacy: Social media roles are today’s change agents. If you expect instant sea change inside your company without a lot of legwork, communication, negotiation, discussion, education, and trial and error, this job is NOT for you. And the outside community will present challenges to you; you need to be able to handle them with patience and tact. It’s a balance of emotional intelligence here.

Connectivity and Awareness: This is a people job, inside and out (and I don’t just mean community roles). You need to be able to talk to people, work with them, socialize with them, connect with them in multiple places. Understand how the network and the people in it need you (and don’t), and how all of those interactions work together to encourage more, deeper, and better connections that ultimately elevate the quality of your work and company.

Expertise

Business Process/Planning and Analysis: From the mid level on up, you want someone who understands financial frameworks for profit and loss, strategic and long range planning (including how to write goals and objectives), and how to map out execution at a tactical level. The key here is the ability to think at a global company level, not within a silo, and not in a linear fashion.

Social Media Anthropology & Participation: If you have someone spearheading social media, I feel pretty strongly that they need to be using it themselves in order to fully understand its implications and unique culture. Yes, that means familiarity with the most widely known tools and technologies, and some of the most consistent and popular applications (for better and for worse) of same, and interest and observation of what’s new on the scene (without the tendency to chase everything new because it is). Academic knowledge is good, applied is even better.

Hedgehog Management: Social media programs that are well thought out have lots of moving parts to manage and drive. People who excel at social media jobs can tackle projects that span multiple networks or areas, and keep all the pieces moving toward a bigger, crystal clear goal (or in Jim Collins’ terms, Hedgehog Concept).

Customer or Client Service: Whether it’s a formal title or not, you really want someone who has experience communicating with customers directly, and fostering those relationships in order to meet their business goals. The most powerful bit of social media is in mobilizing those relationships.

Written Communication Skills: Yep. Sorry, folks. I think this one is really imperative. So much communication and engagement online is in the form of written communication. If you can’t write coherently and professionally, you’re going to struggle. On this note, I also think a lot of social media positions will and should include elements of content marketing, which means that the ability to create and contribute solid content is key.

Social Media Roles And Responsibilities

Again, let me say that I’m writing this from the POV of a job that’s heavily or exclusively social media, and I don’t think these jobs will exist like this forever. And this is a broad, sweeping list that’s not meant to tie to any one job description (though I’m quite certain I have experience bias), but instead give you things to consider if you’re in need of a role like this in your company. A few things that might fall under this umbrella:

• Establish and use listening platforms to gauge the health of the brand online, and potential for participating in new communities
• Build outreach initiatives outside of sales or marketing goals to give our brand a personality and voice within the industry and the communities we care about
• Engage the community actively and responsively, both in relevant outpost communities and existing resident channels (like brand communities), and teach and empower team members to do the same, with consistency and clarity
• Build training programs to help other areas of the company learn and tap the potential of social media for their roles
• Collaborate on internal communication programs to inform and educate around social media initiatives and their broader implications
• Create and facilitate content in multiple media to further engagement goals, both internally and externally, and contribute resources and expertise to prospective and existing community members
• Consume, curate, and share relevant, interesting industry information and content with internal and external communities.
• Understand and observe the parallels and implications of other online activities, including web analytics, email, and search
• Communicate and collaborate on how social media activities impact other business operations, including customer support, human resources, product development, sales and business development, and translate online community and social learnings into business insights
• Establish relevant metrics (new or existing) to map the impact of social media activities in both a qualitative and quantitative fashion, and amend strategies based on learnings and patterns

Reporting wise, I’d put this position under whomever is charged with driving customer experience and a sustainable, positive company presence through online channels, and whatever business function is being most heavily supported by these initiatives. That might be someone in PR, marketing, customer service, client or donor relations, even product management. It needs, in whatever case, to report in to someone who gets the importance and potential of this, even if they don’t necessarily understand the “how”.

Your Turn

There’s no way my list can be exhaustive, nor can it possibly cover every subtlety and nuance of individual positions based on unique business needs. I’m painting with a broad brush, with the hope that it gets the gears turning for all of us to think critically about how these positions fit into business, from multiple perspectives.

So I need to hear from you! What’s missing? What would you included or have you included in your job descriptions? What have you seen that articulates the need for these jobs well? I can’t wait for you to weigh in. Comments are yours.

How many times have you asked this, or heard it asked?

Yes, but who OWNS social media? Is it marketing? PR? Customer service?

My answer? Yes.

You see, we’ve gotten so very matrixed and hierarchical in our approach to accountability and leadership (in everything, not just social media). We’ve told ourselves that something can’t possibly function unless we have one tie to tug, one person or role to point a finger at, one department with which to leave all the heavy lifting or all the glory (while giving ourselves the excuse that, well, that’s in their department).

Tomorrow’s successful and groundbreaking social businesses simply won’t see things that way.

The answers to how social applies inside our companies should never be one dimensional. Because social media isn’t vertical. It isn’t horizontal. It’s a business model that – if deployed well – permeates the very structure and practice of a business. It doesn’t just trickle down a spreadsheet into someone’s budget or list of accomplishments. It’s not a checklist.

But when it comes to management, hierarchies are cleaner. Excluding people by roles or functions is less messy, mostly because it requires less discussion. Parking social media in a singular box means that we somehow can understand and relate to it more familiarly. We can skip the hard work of weaving it throughout our enterprise. For if we label it as PR, we can therefore take the short road to the purpose, ownership, and even the measurements that PR has always implied. Right?

What a terrible waste that is.

The sustainable social organization will embrace the art of team-based innovation and leadership, and the collective accountability that goes along with it. They’ll build social media like a co-op. Driven by a team united voluntarily, toward common goals, and equally invested in the outcomes.

Collaboration is not just a feel-good buzzword. It’s the idea that our business is built more efficiently through shared knowledge, and shared responsibility. That multiple disciplines work together in order to see – from varied angles of expertise – how an organization works and can excel. What it’s challenges are. How to allocate resources, solve problems, innovate. Together.

The customers that we say we are trying to connect with do not care what our job description is or what department we work for. They care that we want to bring them inside the walls and make them a vital part of our business. No one department or discipline alone can accomplish that.

If you’re going to tell me you need to know which budget this fits in or whose strategic plan this falls under, I’m going to tell you all of them. It is your responsibility as a leader in your company to stop staring in the mirror when looking for how to achieve something greater, and start looking down the hallway. Across the aisle. Across the world. Check your ego at the door and realize that transformational ideas rarely have a singular source.

Find a team that cares enough to evaluate how and where social can make an impact. Let enthusiasm, curiosity, and passion be the criteria for participation, not rank and file. Put your plan together as a group, and hold each other accountable for progress. Build a cross-functional budget based on your objectives. Collectively outline your goals and divide and conquer the strategies intertwined areas of responsibility based on roles and expertise. Answer to your successes and failures as a team.

We’ve always wanted to feel like we all had a stake in our business’ success. We’ve all wanted to believe that our job description wasn’t what mattered, but our potential for innovation, cooperation, creativity, and execution on things that mattered. That we were all invested in the process, and that we’d reap the benefits together by watching our business grow.

It’s here. For all of us to do, collectively. The walls between us – internally and externally – have never mattered less. Shouldn’t we, once and for all, grasp the opportunity to show how team-based innovation wins?

image by Jason Riedy