Who “Owns” Social Media?

Understanding which umbrella social media falls under in an organization is often debated between marketing, PR and customer service teams. There are companies with excellent customer service social media accounts, such as Comcast and Verizon, and there are even more companies with great social media accounts run by marketing and PR teams. 

So, what is the right department to hold responsibility for social media? PR people will likely say it’s them. Marketers will likely say the marketing department. But, other departments such as Customer Service, Business Development, and Human Resources can also rightfully claim a stake in social media.

Dell and Zappos are among many large organizations that have created cross-departmental social media teams that manage social media interaction and allow the correct department to handle the correct inquiry.

All departments have something to bring to the table with social media. Even if the marketing and PR teams are the best trained for the job, it can be helpful to bring others with different roles together to provide the best experience for customers while networking online.

Brian Solis recently wrote on an eConsultancy blog, “The customer doesn’t see, nor do they care about, who owns social media. They see one company and they simply need an informed and empathetic response.” 

Social media is not best suited to just one department. While it may fall into just one department, that department should look to get a variety of workers from the business involved. Customers can get more out of social media accounts if they are able to network with the entire business – not just one small team attempting to represent the business. 

 This guest blog post was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Kyra Mazurek.