Who's Your Social Media Community Manager?

 
Your first question may be what’s a social media community manager.
(If you answered the person responsible for the office party then maybe you shouldn’t read any further!)
A social media community manager is the person on your team who owns social media and is responsible for maintaining the various channels, interacting with the community, and reporting back to management.
You might be asking, “Why do I even need one?”
For many organizations, identifying and defining this role is difficult and is often overlooked.
In small one person organizations, figuring out whom the community manage is, is not that difficult.
It’s you!
Now, whether or not you have the bandwidth to do this job is another matter.  (Which I’ll address in a subsequent article.)
In somewhat larger small and medium organizations, this is where the fun begins.
Everyone wants to own social media and put it on their LinkedIn profile until there’s either work to be done or a problem.
Social media channels may be set up and content posted, but ask yourself these questions:

1. Who’s really responsible for creating and posting content regularly?
2. Who follows up promptly on comments made on your social media?
3. Who’s reviewing social media for negative client comments or from other sources?
4. Who looks at what your competitors are doing with social media?
5. Who starts and engages in conversations with your followers?
6. Who grows your community of followers?
7. Who engages industry influencers in social media on your behalf?
8. Who reviews the analytics from your social media channels and prepares reports for you?
9. Who escalates issues to your attention?
10. Who manages your editorial calendar?
11. Who handles your graphics for social media?
12. Who keeps up with changes in social media for you?

OK, get the picture?
There’s a lot to do!
Let’s talk about what to do for a moment…
Realizing there is a problem is the first step in correcting it and…
This is also an opportunity to do social media right!
Here’s what to do:
First, have role and responsibility defined for your community manager.  Include specific assignments with specific goals.  Document the procedures to be followed here.  This doesn’t have to be overkill.  A simple checklist will suffice.
Next, make sure that you have a complete inventory of all your social media channels and map it to the responsibilities of the community manager.
(Don’t laugh, I’ve helped clients uncover social media channels they didn’t even know they had and who then had to call former employees for the passwords!)
Oh, yes BTW, who has the passwords to all your social media channels?
Who’s going to be the backup to your community manager in case they don’t come to work tomorrow?
Finally, have regular reports prepared for your review showing your progress to date with social media against a baseline.
A community manager is part and parcel of a successful social media program.
Make the social media program and its community manager part of of your organization’s culture.
Also, don’t be afraid to ask for help!
That’s it for now!
In the meantime, thank you for following and reading my blog!
I look forward to any and all comments that you may have.  I will reply to any comments made to this blog post as promptly as I can.
Remember!
I do this for a living and if I can be of any assistance to either you or your organization, please feel free to call on me.  Our initial discussion will be of no charge to you.
I can also be reached at conpsweeney@someddi.com.
My Twitter handle is @conpsweeney.
Stay well!