Swimming in a Social Pond: Who owns Social Media in a business? #w2e

A very interesting question was asked today at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco. "Who in a business owns Social Media"

Presenters Answer:
According to the presenter (Joshua-Michele Ross from Fleishman Hillard)
"Social Media should not be owned by the obvious departments in the business such as Marketing or PR instead it should be owned by the person / department that wants the opportunity.

Why I disagree:
Now this is where I strongly disagree, sure its good passing the buck to someone who wants it, but just because you want the opportunity does not mean you have the necessary experience in both business and in the social media.

Most of the recent Social Media disasters (Nestle springs to mind, see below for related post) was caused by inexperienced business users who thought they are social media experts because they have a facebook page and know what a tweet is.

You need a careful blend of traditional business communication knowledge and informal social language.

Just because you are engaging your users on a social platform does not mean you engage them with the language and attitudeyou engage your friends with

Presenters answer continued:

He then stated that it should be done on a mandate from top management.

Why I disagree:

I am not quite sure if he has ever truly worked in a business where top management still think of blogs and forums as a place you "go to play" after hours.

If you look at the general age of Top Management, most epecially those from established businesses tend to be baby boomers / gen Y.

These are the people who still cant sleep at night because the company's fax number is no longer on their business card.

It is only in 2016 that most of the Top Management will be the gen y's or Digital Natives as Gartner calls them.

In my view, current top management are not qualified to make any kind of Social Media mandate. They just don't seem to 'get' it. They still believe it can be controlled or censored and that it should be about us telling them what we want them to hear.

What business leaders and top management need is 3rd party enducation from a respected peer. Only once they fully understand the Social Media space and implecations can they truly decide the who, what, where and when.