Or so goes the quick answer at many a business when they’re trying to figure out how to get their arms around social media. The temptation is to go out and scoop up someone with name recognition, with a prominent presence on the latest social networks, and put them in the driver’s seat for your social media strategy. That takes care of everything, right?

Not quite.

It’s awesome to hire talented, accomplished people. It’s even better to hire talented people that have skill sets and expertise that might not be prevalent in your company. But it’s very, very important to look at the long term play. Make sure your ringer is part of the picture, even an important one, but not the basket in which you’re plunking all of your eggs. Here are a few reasons why.

1. You want bench strength and sustainability.

Think “teach the teacher”. Let your ringer lead and build, let them create interest and enthusiasm and lay the groundwork. But think in terms of having that person impart their knowledge to others in the organization. That can mean grooming full-fledged social media professionals to serve on a central team, or simply helping established professionals in other areas add social media expertise and skills to their scope.

Eventually, you want to have social media skills and abilities distributed throughout your organization, and more than one person that can serve as a guidepost or anchor point for the overall company’s social media knowledge. That gives you breadth as well as depth, and creates transferable knowledge, which is critical to building a sustainable and scalable business.

2. You want an overall perception of expertise, not a rockstar with a supporting cast.

Outside the organization, you want your customers and community to see you as a truly social business that embraces those practices across the board, not a business with a single social media rockstar in the spotlight.

There is a great deal of value in having visible talent in your organization in many places. We’ve had “rockstar” salespeople for ages. The difference here is due to social media’s nascence; as companies are learning to “be social”, you want that expertise to be part of your entire brand, not isolated to a single person. It’s too easy to say “oh, Jenna is the reason that Company X is social” if you aren’t working to bring more people than just Jenna to the forefront.

3. You want to discover new voices and talent.

There are undoubtedly people in your organization that would excel at social media. You just haven’t seen them yet.

Their role may or may not be central to communications. It could be sales or customer service or even product or brand management. But the notables aren’t your only hope! Look inside your own walls for people that have an interest in social media, and give them the resources and leeway to learn, absorb, and embrace social on behalf of your company to cultivate your own social media talent. Many a respected industry expert has been home grown within the ranks of a company.

4. Your ringer only has so much capacity.

One of the blessing-curses of being talented or capable is that you’ll always be in demand. Which means if your social media ringer is worth a fig, they’ll quickly be inundated. And a single human only has so much capacity to both build something AND maintain what’s already there.

You need that bench strength not just for sustainability, but for sheer practicality. If you do social well and at depth, it’s a lot of work, and it takes significant resources. A single person will only ever be able to scratch the surface, but an armada of socially plugged-in professionals can help you scale.

5. When your ringer leaves, stuff goes with them.

Back to the rockstar sales rep for a minute. Remember the rolodex on their desk?

When the rockstar moves on – and that’s more the rule than the exception – that rolodex goes with them. And in today’s world of complex online networks, many degrees of connections, and relationships that blur boundaries of the personal and professional, your ringer’s networks will still be part of them when they go, like it or not. Representing a brand online is a very symbiotic relationship when done well, but there’s no doubt that even the most amicable departure can leave a bit of a gap.

Unless you plan well. The ringer moving on to something new might be a bit of a hiccup, but it doesn’t have to derail you completely. Building a diverse team with lots of engaged and educated people can spread the wealth of knowledge, and ensure that relationships are forged deeply with the company, not only with the individuals. Have transition plans in mind, and successors that are part of educated teams so there’s always an heir apparent to your social media leadership roles. You’d do that for other critical areas of your company, and social media is no different (though it just might be even more visible).

Never Fear…

Having a ringer on your team is fantastic. Valuable. Lucky, indeed.

But if you plan properly, and think of how that ringer can leave a bit of their awesome behind if they head off to another adventure, you’ll always have a team of folks waiting to step in and carry on.

It’s part of the business cycle, and a little forethought and long-term thinking can let you enjoy both the contributions of your incredibly talented team members, and the knowledge that you’ll always be ready for the next generation.

Do you have amazing talent on your team? Do you fear what’ll happen when yours moves onto something new? Do you have a plan to make your business the ringer instead?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

A post from Brass Tack Thinking
Why You Shouldn’t Rely on a Social Media Ringer

Social media is limited in focus and lifespan.

It’s *one* line of application in an otherwise vast business landscape that includes many disciplines, and many approaches to solving the related challenges.

That goes for me too. I am first and foremost a communicator, and as I like to say, a constructive heretic. While my role is focused and specialized toward social media, I didn’t seek out a career there.

I wanted a career that focused on communication and brand stewardship. I communicate inside my company. From my company to my customers. I help people talk to each other by making connections when I can. I communicate about what I believe, and I digest a lot of what others think (which emphasizes that communication isn’t always about what you say, but sometimes, what you absorb). I share what I learn. I push boundaries and break rules, but always with the intent of creating positive, progressive change that can grow a business.

I do those things with various tools, but always toward larger aims. Once upon a time, I did it with paper and mail. After that it was websites and video and email. Today, it’s Twitter and blogs. Who knows what might be next? But the intent is always the same.

Think Specialization Within A Field

It’s kind of like my life as a musician. I’m a flute player, which is my instrument, my specialization. But I am a musician first, and I apply the theories and applications of a broader music landscape to my niche role as a flute player. The goal is to make music, and I play my part with the instrument I’ve learned best.

Put another way, my friend DJ Waldow knows email. But he’s a marketer and communicator, with email as his specialization of choice, and where he focuses his expertise. But to him, it’s about applying email into a larger communication strategy, not a suggestion that email is the one and only thing. And he uses social media to help drive his larger goal, which is to help companies use email marketing for *their* larger goal, which is better communication with their customers. Savvy?

Need one more example? Look at these entrepreneurs, all of which you might recognize through their social media activity, but whose callings and ideas are bigger than the tools they use to get there.

Social media mastery isn’t the goal.

The goal is to master better connections. More effective communication. How technology links people. Relationships that matter, in context, to individuals. Business that keeps a people-focused attitude at the core of its actions. And with mastery in the larger idea comes evolving expertise in the tools and underlying strategies.

Beware of tunnel vision, my friends. Strive to focus on a larger construct: Customer experience. Communication. Human resources. Business development. Innovation. Entrepreneurship. And within that, if social media is your weapon of choice, by all means learn it, and learn it well.

But remember that social media has to be applied to something broader in order to work. It’s not the end game in itself, but rather one vehicle with which to get there, and one which will inevitably give way to something else. If you focus too closely on the tactical pieces, you’ll make yourself obsolete as soon as the next new thing comes along.

And in the name of putting my money where my mouth is, those blog changes I promised are coming in the not-too-distant future. You can expect a continued thread of social media and how it applies to business, but I’ll be exploring more in the context of communication, change-making, and what it really means to build community in the truest sense of the word.

Don’t get stuck thinking that the means is your aim. The social media pigeonhole is a sticky place to be. Find something bigger and more timeless to drive toward, and you can adapt to whatever the fast-and-fickle world throws at you.

image credit: James Cridland

A post from Brass Tack Thinking
Avoiding the Social Media Pigeonhole