Part two of my series on the different solutions organizations have found for their social media marketing. Read Scenario #1: The Over-enthusiastic Intern.

Scenario #2: X-Company is Going Social and Everyone’s Invited!

X-Company: “Wooohooo! We are embracing social media and we want our whole company to embrace it to and become a part of it!”

Awesome. But hang on a sec. You aren’t planning on giving all of your employees (or even several) access to your social media sites to post away at will are you? Ok good. That could turn into a real disaster.

Don’t get me wrong, the more people in in a company who are into participating in social media efforts, the richer your content can be. It’s also great to get different perspectives on a business through the eyes of different employees and departments. However, one of the problems is, even if everyone is properly trained in how to use the tools and how to interact with the community, there really is still something to be said about creating consistent messaging and having one person become the “face” that delivers that message.

My suggestion here is that you appoint an appropriate person to be the “hub” and the face of your social media program meaning that they are solely responsible for all content and relationship building. Let the rest of your team know that if they have anything that could add value to the company’s social media streams, they can send it to your “hub person” and they will post it (as long as it is deemed appropriate).

The other issue is that, as with any company initiative, when something is “everyone’s” responsibility, it becomes nobody’s. It’s very likely that not many people are going to take the initiative and get involved in posting and engaging with the community; In today’s fast-paced world, there often isn’t much room in one’s day to accommodate non-essential tasks. If you have one person in charge, links and posts will inevitably trickle in to them from the team but the social media channel isn’t dependent on them. That said, it’s essential to make sure that whoever is in charge has the time themselves. The 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report found that 56% of marketers are using social media for 6 hours or more each week and 30% for 11 or more hours weekly. Keep this in mind when deciding what might need to be taken off of your employee’s plate or, if it makes more sense to outsource this task to an agency.

- Rosa Meyer