Flickr User: TimmyGunz
I really do hate this question. The public "owns" social media. It's a communications professional's job, within that environment, to ensure that the organization he or she represents maintains a position as a welcome member of those communities.
As with a great many things, though, I have to look at this as a case of a topic that's frequently poorly expressed and considered, rather than completely without value.
Vocus recently tried to tackle this topic in a recent survey and, in so doing, exposed some fallacies surrounding this persistent discussion.
Ownership of social media and blogging is still undecided: PR and marketing each have a strong sense of ownership. 43% of PR professionals feel they should own social media, while 34% of marketers make the same claim.
Here's a concept: Social media principles should be integrated throughout the respective disciplines of public relations and marketing (as well as other communications disciplines), and pursued in cooperation.
Another finding:
37% of PR professionals think PR should own the corporate blog versus 23% of marketers expressing the same sentiment.
Corporate communications is a PR discipline, much more so than a marketing one. Doesn't matter if the platform under contention is a blog or a wet clay tablet. Now, if a blog presented marketing-related content (maybe akin to what DellOutlet does on Twitter) then a case can be made. However, the term "corporate" is critical in this instance.
Two parallel ideas are at work here:
- Every communications function within an organization needs to figure out what social media means to them.
- This means that, while no one functional group "owns" social media, there must be some agreement as to which aspects, channels, techniques or audiences are best addressed by each discipline.
Recent Comments