Is Social Media in the Right Hands? Maybe.

Social media is the buzzword of a lot of programs and articles lately...and especially my class. Day after day, we're told that to have the "edge" in this business, a keen sense of social media and its many forms is desirable, crucial, maybe even essential.

I'm headed to an agency for my internship, and it's the environment in which I hope to begin my career. I imagine that at some point, I'll be doing something related to social media-- I'll probably start with monitoring it, eventually I'll be analyzing it, and maybe one day I'll be developing it. Like anything else, it's a natural progression of responsibility.

However, there's something a wee bit puzzling about social media. As Tom Smith notes in Why Big Brands Struggle with Social Media: "No one is quite sure whose responsibility it is and who should ultimately deliver their organisation’s social media strategy."

It kind of makes you think, who's in charge? Is it...

• The outsourced PR company?
• The communications director?
• The CEO?
• The summer student paid $10 an hour to sort the mail?

Personally, I believe the natural progression of responsibility is this: The PR people like us who are trained and well-versed in what it is, how it works and why it's beneficial are those who should explain social media. We give a few how-tos and determine the best methods for the particular company or project.

As Chris Brogan notes in Social Media Decision Tree, the best resource for some might not work for others depending on the company's size, culture, purpose, operation...you name it. He gives an example:

"Pharma companies have to really weigh hard the decision to listen, because it comes with extra reporting requirements. Legal organizations can’t just dive in and blog, because they have to be wary of being seen as offering advice, or insinuating lawyer-client privilege. Marketers can’t just repost any old thing to YouTube, because they might not have the rights for various pieces of the creative."

So in short, as the PR help, we assist. We consult. Maybe we set up the blog. We start the process and ultimately show why it's effective communication. After all, as communication people, this is our job.

But in terms of the nitty gritty...well, that's not up to us.

As I mentioned in my post about ghost ethics, social media is about people. With regards to a company or organization, social media should involve those people. As a hopefully-soon-to-be PR practitioner, I'd hope that my role in social media for a client would be a coaching one. Like I said before, I'm not totally comfortable with writing a CEO's blog, and I'm particularly not comfortable with it if I don't even work for that company.

Smith also notes that social media is not a campaign, but is instead a long-term approach to stakeholder engagement. The funny thing is, PR often is a campaign. For some companies, the only time PR comes into the framework is when there's something to say, promote or sell. As such, the two don't neccessarily go hand in hand.

Again, social media has to come from company people, and I don't just mean communications people. If there's an organization blog, staff from all walks of life should be involved in it. Social media, as I've said often, is a conversation. In terms of using it for business, it has to be a holistic conversation, not a conversation with key messages and strategies and tactics. Not to say that every last cubicle has to house a blogger, but social media should be something a little more broad than just the communications personel getting on twitter a few times a day.

Social media isn't like PR or traditional advertising, both of which are best left in the hands of specialists. Rather, it's supposed to showcase transparency and engagement-- something that's very hard to do when it's being written by one level of the organization, or by someone that's not even really employed by the company at all.

That said, I think PR Social Media about PR is a great thing. Bloggers like Joe Thornley, Dave Fleet and Gary Schlee (former co-ordinator of my program) have a lot of interesting things to say about the industry and a lot of knowledge on this "web 2.0" business. You don't, however, often see them talking about their clients.

So the progression?

It starts with PR leading the way, and ends with everyone taking part-- even the mail guy.