Who is Your Designated Tweeter?

By: Joe Kiefer

Twitter continues to dominate conversations in both traditional media and on the web.  The discussions are extremely broad, but recently on the ASM LinkedIn group I have noticed two separate posts regarding who should be handling the communication through your Twitter account.

This is a great question and I thought the posts were very beneficial for companies that are just getting into social media and Twitter specifically.  The options most often presented are an agency, internal marketing department or someone from the C-Suite. 

Personally, I don't think the C-Suite is going to work very well, but there are exceptions.  High profile executives can draw a lot of attention and as long as long as they are able to stay within an organized strategy this could work out.  There is almost no chance of this working if their messages are not targeted towards a central strategy.  Tweeting to tweet may be better than not having a Twitter account at all, but just barely.

If you are going to start taking social media and Twitter seriously then you should treat it like your other marketing methods.  You wouldn't send out a mail plan without a purpose or an e-mail without a strategy, so don't make that mistake in social media either.  Developing a social media strategy is the most important part of your social media plan.  You can exhaust all sorts of resources on social media, but if they are not all working in combination towards the same goal then you are wasting time and probably money.

Okay, so a strategy is important, now back to the initial question.  Who should craft that strategy and who should communicate it.  As is the case in most situations, the answer to this question can be different depending on your own situation.  I believe the answer in most cases, however, is going to be a blended approach.  Much like I don't think an executive should be doing your tweeting, in most cases, your marketing department probably won't have the necessary expertise in social media to be as effective as possible.  More than likely they will be limited by time constraints as well, unless you make it their only or primary responsibility.  On the other hand, an agency may know everything there is to know about social media, but they won't have a clue when it comes to the culture of your company, your typical communication tone or what is most important to you.  Don't assume the agency knows everything there is to know about social media going in.  Make sure you do your homework!

If you go with the blended approach you will bring in an agency, but they will work closely with a dedicated social media group within your organization.  Again, it is important to make sure these group members are spending enough time on this initiative to make it successful.  Make sure you stress the importance of this initiave and take projects away to free up time for this.  By bringing in the agency your hybrid group should get up and running quickly.  Your in-house social media group will gain knowledge quickly about social media best practices and tactics and your agency will gain knowledge quickly about your company, culture and communication style.

Your in-house group should be the leader in the strategy development, but the agency should be there for input and direction.  The agency may want to be proprietary in the communication, but I would recommend having an in-house communicator as well.  You will want someone becoming more comfortable with the tools and techniques appropriate for social media and Twitter.  As long as the strategy is well crafted the communication should be seamless and the group being communicated to shouldn't notice a difference from the agency or in-house group in terms of tweets.

I believe this hybrid approach will get you going in the right direction and give your social media efforts the best chance for success.  If you would like to see the initial comment and subsequent posts on LinkedIn just join the ASM group at: http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=2341528.