This post ran earlier in the week on Ari Herzog’s Blog.  I wanted to share with you in case you missed it over there.

My friend Ari Herzog asked me to pen a post on his blog to shed some insight into being the man behind the curtain of a corporate social media team.  Now before you get pictures of the Grand Wizard of Oz in your head, I will kill the illusion for you – Tweeting, Facebooking and reading blogs is not fun, its work that demands us to be on  at all times. We can’t let emotions or typos get the best of us.  In fact being on social networks is just a small part of our daily routines.

In fact those three pieces of the social pie, Tweeting, Facebooking, and reading blogs, are just a small part of the daily minutia of a corporate social media person. Don’t scratch your head too hard, the things we do beyond typing in 140 characters or less can be broken into three pieces of a triforce: Educating, Conversing and Measuring.

Educating

While Tweeting, liking, commenting or checking in may seem like second nature to many reading this blog, it is actually not as common you would think outside the online circle that we call friends. To many executives and staff members, social media is an enigma that they want to know more about.

Despite social media’s growing popularity many executives and other employees in our companies have not yet embraced the trends.  They don’t have the time to read blogs, books or studies on the space so it is up to the SM team to educate them [I would use the term educate here, or somewhere in the paragraph, since it’s the title of the section].  This may sound easy, but at times it is rocket science as generating digestible information that is not too watered is not the easiest thing to do. If you think it is, I suggest trying it sometime.

Conversing

The root of social media is the conversation on the platforms that we all know and love. There are thousands of networks out there covering everything from obscure art to being a doula to the traditional staples of Twitter and Facebook. Internal social practitioners need to play the hybrid role of shepherd and fisherman as they find where the company’s customers are talking and then shepherding the conversation.

These interactions take up the majority of our days, but they are also the most fruitful. I like to look at the space as a large cocktail party where you get to meet interesting folks each day that are talking about the brand. These talks run the gamut of emotions and can sometimes be offensive, but we need to remember not to take things personally. When you’re on the clock you’re the brand’s human side making connections and helping customers one at a time while being able to be viewed by the masses.

Measuring

It is fun to play in the social sandbox, but at the end of the day this is big business. Metrics and measurables may vary company to company, but if you show me a company that is not measuring anything I will show you a fool.  The cliché that you cannot measure conversations is baloney.

Depending on the company goals we can measure anything from community size, to conversation share to dollars driven by social media.  There is no right or wrong it is what you want to move the needle.

If you are looking for a fancy equation to see how much a conversation is worth, here you go:  Dollars earned / Total conversations = Value of Conversation.

While I would love to say those were the only duties of an internal SM person, I can’t lie. Many people in this position also have other job responsibilities that cannot fall to the wayside. For me it is also public relations on top of the SM responsibilities. So if this is something that you’d like to get into, be ready to wear multiple hats.

This post ran earlier in the week on Ari Herzog’s Blog.  I wanted to share with you in case you missed it over there.

My friend Ari Herzog asked me to pen a post on his blog to shed some insight into being the man behind the curtain of a corporate social media team.  Now before you get pictures of the Grand Wizard of Oz in your head, I will kill the illusion for you – Tweeting, Facebooking and reading blogs is not fun, its work that demands us to be on  at all times. We can’t let emotions or typos get the best of us.  In fact being on social networks is just a small part of our daily routines.

In fact those three pieces of the social pie, Tweeting, Facebooking, and reading blogs, are just a small part of the daily minutia of a corporate social media person. Don’t scratch your head too hard, the things we do beyond typing in 140 characters or less can be broken into three pieces of a triforce: Educating, Conversing and Measuring.

Educating

While Tweeting, liking, commenting or checking in may seem like second nature to many reading this blog, it is actually not as common you would think outside the online circle that we call friends. To many executives and staff members, social media is an enigma that they want to know more about.

Despite social media’s growing popularity many executives and other employees in our companies have not yet embraced the trends.  They don’t have the time to read blogs, books or studies on the space so it is up to the SM team to educate them [I would use the term educate here, or somewhere in the paragraph, since it’s the title of the section].  This may sound easy, but at times it is rocket science as generating digestible information that is not too watered is not the easiest thing to do. If you think it is, I suggest trying it sometime.

Conversing

The root of social media is the conversation on the platforms that we all know and love. There are thousands of networks out there covering everything from obscure art to being a doula to the traditional staples of Twitter and Facebook. Internal social practitioners need to play the hybrid role of shepherd and fisherman as they find where the company’s customers are talking and then shepherding the conversation.

These interactions take up the majority of our days, but they are also the most fruitful. I like to look at the space as a large cocktail party where you get to meet interesting folks each day that are talking about the brand. These talks run the gamut of emotions and can sometimes be offensive, but we need to remember not to take things personally. When you’re on the clock you’re the brand’s human side making connections and helping customers one at a time while being able to be viewed by the masses.

Measuring

It is fun to play in the social sandbox, but at the end of the day this is big business. Metrics and measurables may vary company to company, but if you show me a company that is not measuring anything I will show you a fool.  The cliché that you cannot measure conversations is baloney.

Depending on the company goals we can measure anything from community size, to conversation share to dollars driven by social media.  There is no right or wrong it is what you want to move the needle.

If you are looking for a fancy equation to see how much a conversation is worth, here you go:  Dollars earned / Total conversations = Value of Conversation.

While I would love to say those were the only duties of an internal SM person, I can’t lie. Many people in this position also have other job responsibilities that cannot fall to the wayside. For me it is also public relations on top of the SM responsibilities. So if this is something that you’d like to get into, be ready to wear multiple hats.

This post ran earlier in the week on Ari Herzog’s Blog.  I wanted to share with you in case you missed it over there.

My friend Ari Herzog asked me to pen a post on his blog to shed some insight into being the man behind the curtain of a corporate social media team.  Now before you get pictures of the Grand Wizard of Oz in your head, I will kill the illusion for you – Tweeting, Facebooking and reading blogs is not fun, its work that demands us to be on  at all times. We can’t let emotions or typos get the best of us.  In fact being on social networks is just a small part of our daily routines.

In fact those three pieces of the social pie, Tweeting, Facebooking, and reading blogs, are just a small part of the daily minutia of a corporate social media person. Don’t scratch your head too hard, the things we do beyond typing in 140 characters or less can be broken into three pieces of a triforce: Educating, Conversing and Measuring.

Educating

While Tweeting, liking, commenting or checking in may seem like second nature to many reading this blog, it is actually not as common you would think outside the online circle that we call friends. To many executives and staff members, social media is an enigma that they want to know more about.

Despite social media’s growing popularity many executives and other employees in our companies have not yet embraced the trends.  They don’t have the time to read blogs, books or studies on the space so it is up to the SM team to educate them [I would use the term educate here, or somewhere in the paragraph, since it’s the title of the section].  This may sound easy, but at times it is rocket science as generating digestible information that is not too watered is not the easiest thing to do. If you think it is, I suggest trying it sometime.

Conversing

The root of social media is the conversation on the platforms that we all know and love. There are thousands of networks out there covering everything from obscure art to being a doula to the traditional staples of Twitter and Facebook. Internal social practitioners need to play the hybrid role of shepherd and fisherman as they find where the company’s customers are talking and then shepherding the conversation.

These interactions take up the majority of our days, but they are also the most fruitful. I like to look at the space as a large cocktail party where you get to meet interesting folks each day that are talking about the brand. These talks run the gamut of emotions and can sometimes be offensive, but we need to remember not to take things personally. When you’re on the clock you’re the brand’s human side making connections and helping customers one at a time while being able to be viewed by the masses.

Measuring

It is fun to play in the social sandbox, but at the end of the day this is big business. Metrics and measurables may vary company to company, but if you show me a company that is not measuring anything I will show you a fool.  The cliché that you cannot measure conversations is baloney.

Depending on the company goals we can measure anything from community size, to conversation share to dollars driven by social media.  There is no right or wrong it is what you want to move the needle.

If you are looking for a fancy equation to see how much a conversation is worth, here you go:  Dollars earned / Total conversations = Value of Conversation.

While I would love to say those were the only duties of an internal SM person, I can’t lie. Many people in this position also have other job responsibilities that cannot fall to the wayside. For me it is also public relations on top of the SM responsibilities. So if this is something that you’d like to get into, be ready to wear multiple hats.

This post ran earlier in the week on Ari Herzog’s Blog.  I wanted to share with you in case you missed it over there.

My friend Ari Herzog asked me to pen a post on his blog to shed some insight into being the man behind the curtain of a corporate social media team.  Now before you get pictures of the Grand Wizard of Oz in your head, I will kill the illusion for you – Tweeting, Facebooking and reading blogs is not fun, its work that demands us to be on  at all times. We can’t let emotions or typos get the best of us.  In fact being on social networks is just a small part of our daily routines.

In fact those three pieces of the social pie, Tweeting, Facebooking, and reading blogs, are just a small part of the daily minutia of a corporate social media person. Don’t scratch your head too hard, the things we do beyond typing in 140 characters or less can be broken into three pieces of a triforce: Educating, Conversing and Measuring.

Educating

While Tweeting, liking, commenting or checking in may seem like second nature to many reading this blog, it is actually not as common you would think outside the online circle that we call friends. To many executives and staff members, social media is an enigma that they want to know more about.

Despite social media’s growing popularity many executives and other employees in our companies have not yet embraced the trends.  They don’t have the time to read blogs, books or studies on the space so it is up to the SM team to educate them [I would use the term educate here, or somewhere in the paragraph, since it’s the title of the section].  This may sound easy, but at times it is rocket science as generating digestible information that is not too watered is not the easiest thing to do. If you think it is, I suggest trying it sometime.

Conversing

The root of social media is the conversation on the platforms that we all know and love. There are thousands of networks out there covering everything from obscure art to being a doula to the traditional staples of Twitter and Facebook. Internal social practitioners need to play the hybrid role of shepherd and fisherman as they find where the company’s customers are talking and then shepherding the conversation.

These interactions take up the majority of our days, but they are also the most fruitful. I like to look at the space as a large cocktail party where you get to meet interesting folks each day that are talking about the brand. These talks run the gamut of emotions and can sometimes be offensive, but we need to remember not to take things personally. When you’re on the clock you’re the brand’s human side making connections and helping customers one at a time while being able to be viewed by the masses.

Measuring

It is fun to play in the social sandbox, but at the end of the day this is big business. Metrics and measurables may vary company to company, but if you show me a company that is not measuring anything I will show you a fool.  The cliché that you cannot measure conversations is baloney.

Depending on the company goals we can measure anything from community size, to conversation share to dollars driven by social media.  There is no right or wrong it is what you want to move the needle.

If you are looking for a fancy equation to see how much a conversation is worth, here you go:  Dollars earned / Total conversations = Value of Conversation.

While I would love to say those were the only duties of an internal SM person, I can’t lie. Many people in this position also have other job responsibilities that cannot fall to the wayside. For me it is also public relations on top of the SM responsibilities. So if this is something that you’d like to get into, be ready to wear multiple hats.