Over the past few weeks the misconstrued debate around social media ownership has been kicked back around. This post from PR Daily helped spark some outcry and others, like Shelly Kramer, threw out some more balanced and level-headed thoughts. With that said, can we agree to end this foolish pissing-contest about social media ownership?

Social media is not an infant anymore; it’s something companies are starting to take seriously. Unlike many areas of business, it touches everything and really needs to be looked at cross-functionally including measuring success as results for each arm of the program. It is the only way to paint the full picture of social media success.

Confused?

You shouldn’t be.

Social media is all about building relationships and having those relationships translate into a specific action so it is only natural for you to have to work with other people to achieve this goal. For the sake of this post, let’s say that the major stakeholders in your company’s social media output are communications (PR), marketing, recruiting and support (here’s a look at a much larger touchpoint model). Separate success metrics could look something like:

• Social Marketing – How much money social ads drives (compared to expenses), value of fan/follower, repeat revenue from active fan base.
• Social Communications – How many fans are engaged with the brand or reduction in fan churn due to great content marketing.
• Social Recruiting – How many candidates were hired via social media and how much this reduced recruiting costs.
• Social Support – Types of customers getting served via social media support and how much this reduces call/email costs or how much incremental lift in purchase rate can be seen from customers who engage with the brand via social support.

In a vacuum, these success metrics fail to show things like how much time social media content reduced a sales lead’s conversion time or how a candidate learned about a company’s great corporate culture or support from a recent blog or media mention. On the flip side lack of communication on success can also lead to a marketing team not knowing that their social ads are increasing displeasure among the fanbase or an increase in support calls due to a bug. In both scenarios, a level of efficiency is lost – do you see a problem there?

I do.

Moving forward I can only hope that companies look to break the silo culture and bust the whole myth of ownership and move to a functional and holistic view of social where we are looking at social as a master goal/campaign with multiple touchpoints that look at the big picture and not the silo that’s been preached in some bigger publications. Someone has to make the change, why not lead the charge?

Would love to hear where you stand – on the door of the silo with torch or one looking to build a moat around it?

Over the past few weeks the misconstrued debate around social media ownership has been kicked back around. This post from PR Daily helped spark some outcry and others, like Shelly Kramer, threw out some more balanced and level-headed thoughts. With that said, can we agree to end this foolish pissing-contest about social media ownership?

Social media is not an infant anymore; it’s something companies are starting to take seriously. Unlike many areas of business, it touches everything and really needs to be looked at cross-functionally including measuring success as results for each arm of the program. It is the only way to paint the full picture of social media success.

Confused?

You shouldn’t be.

Social media is all about building relationships and having those relationships translate into a specific action so it is only natural for you to have to work with other people to achieve this goal. For the sake of this post, let’s say that the major stakeholders in your company’s social media output are communications (PR), marketing, recruiting and support (here’s a look at a much larger touchpoint model). Separate success metrics could look something like:

• Social Marketing – How much money social ads drives (compared to expenses), value of fan/follower, repeat revenue from active fan base.
• Social Communications – How many fans are engaged with the brand or reduction in fan churn due to great content marketing.
• Social Recruiting – How many candidates were hired via social media and how much this reduced recruiting costs.
• Social Support – Types of customers getting served via social media support and how much this reduces call/email costs or how much incremental lift in purchase rate can be seen from customers who engage with the brand via social support.

In a vacuum, these success metrics fail to show things like how much time social media content reduced a sales lead’s conversion time or how a candidate learned about a company’s great corporate culture or support from a recent blog or media mention. On the flip side lack of communication on success can also lead to a marketing team not knowing that their social ads are increasing displeasure among the fanbase or an increase in support calls due to a bug. In both scenarios, a level of efficiency is lost – do you see a problem there?

I do.

Moving forward I can only hope that companies look to break the silo culture and bust the whole myth of ownership and move to a functional and holistic view of social where we are looking at social as a master goal/campaign with multiple touchpoints that look at the big picture and not the silo that’s been preached in some bigger publications. Someone has to make the change, why not lead the charge?

Would love to hear where you stand – on the door of the silo with torch or one looking to build a moat around it?

Over the past few weeks the misconstrued debate around social media ownership has been kicked back around. This post from PR Daily helped spark some outcry and others, like Shelly Kramer, threw out some more balanced and level-headed thoughts. With that said, can we agree to end this foolish pissing-contest about social media ownership?

Social media is not an infant anymore; it’s something companies are starting to take seriously. Unlike many areas of business, it touches everything and really needs to be looked at cross-functionally including measuring success as results for each arm of the program. It is the only way to paint the full picture of social media success.

Confused?

You shouldn’t be.

Social media is all about building relationships and having those relationships translate into a specific action so it is only natural for you to have to work with other people to achieve this goal. For the sake of this post, let’s say that the major stakeholders in your company’s social media output are communications (PR), marketing, recruiting and support (here’s a look at a much larger touchpoint model). Separate success metrics could look something like:

• Social Marketing – How much money social ads drives (compared to expenses), value of fan/follower, repeat revenue from active fan base.
• Social Communications – How many fans are engaged with the brand or reduction in fan churn due to great content marketing.
• Social Recruiting – How many candidates were hired via social media and how much this reduced recruiting costs.
• Social Support – Types of customers getting served via social media support and how much this reduces call/email costs or how much incremental lift in purchase rate can be seen from customers who engage with the brand via social support.

In a vacuum, these success metrics fail to show things like how much time social media content reduced a sales lead’s conversion time or how a candidate learned about a company’s great corporate culture or support from a recent blog or media mention. On the flip side lack of communication on success can also lead to a marketing team not knowing that their social ads are increasing displeasure among the fanbase or an increase in support calls due to a bug. In both scenarios, a level of efficiency is lost – do you see a problem there?

I do.

Moving forward I can only hope that companies look to break the silo culture and bust the whole myth of ownership and move to a functional and holistic view of social where we are looking at social as a master goal/campaign with multiple touchpoints that look at the big picture and not the silo that’s been preached in some bigger publications. Someone has to make the change, why not lead the charge?

Would love to hear where you stand – on the door of the silo with torch or one looking to build a moat around it?

Over the past few weeks the misconstrued debate around social media ownership has been kicked back around. This post from PR Daily helped spark some outcry and others, like Shelly Kramer, threw out some more balanced and level-headed thoughts. With that said, can we agree to end this foolish pissing-contest about social media ownership?

Social media is not an infant anymore; it’s something companies are starting to take seriously. Unlike many areas of business, it touches everything and really needs to be looked at cross-functionally including measuring success as results for each arm of the program. It is the only way to paint the full picture of social media success.

Confused?

You shouldn’t be.

Social media is all about building relationships and having those relationships translate into a specific action so it is only natural for you to have to work with other people to achieve this goal. For the sake of this post, let’s say that the major stakeholders in your company’s social media output are communications (PR), marketing, recruiting and support (here’s a look at a much larger touchpoint model). Separate success metrics could look something like:

• Social Marketing – How much money social ads drives (compared to expenses), value of fan/follower, repeat revenue from active fan base.
• Social Communications – How many fans are engaged with the brand or reduction in fan churn due to great content marketing.
• Social Recruiting – How many candidates were hired via social media and how much this reduced recruiting costs.
• Social Support – Types of customers getting served via social media support and how much this reduces call/email costs or how much incremental lift in purchase rate can be seen from customers who engage with the brand via social support.

In a vacuum, these success metrics fail to show things like how much time social media content reduced a sales lead’s conversion time or how a candidate learned about a company’s great corporate culture or support from a recent blog or media mention. On the flip side lack of communication on success can also lead to a marketing team not knowing that their social ads are increasing displeasure among the fanbase or an increase in support calls due to a bug. In both scenarios, a level of efficiency is lost – do you see a problem there?

I do.

Moving forward I can only hope that companies look to break the silo culture and bust the whole myth of ownership and move to a functional and holistic view of social where we are looking at social as a master goal/campaign with multiple touchpoints that look at the big picture and not the silo that’s been preached in some bigger publications. Someone has to make the change, why not lead the charge?

Would love to hear where you stand – on the door of the silo with torch or one looking to build a moat around it?