Who should run your Social Media for Business?

After recently reading an article titled “11 reasons a 23 year old shouldn’t run your Social Media” I thought it only appropriate I blog about working for Love Social Media. The above article describes 23 year old’s as immature, self- centred, uncontrollable, and fundamentally unreliable Community Managers. On first glance I should find this article insulting, as I’m currently 23 and working as a Community Manager, however I see the underlying issue here and to be honest it benefits me. This article is telling you not to hire someone inexperienced to run your social media – quite right! But this has nothing to do with age. Don’t let a 50 year old run your social media strategy for exactly the same reasons. Essentially this article is highlighting that companies need to outsource their Social Media services, training and hire consultancy. Excellent news for me!

Social Media for business is very different to how you are probably currently interacting socially. The majority of us have a Facebook account, used for stalking old school friends. We’ve probably all got a LinkedIn page scattered with the highlights of our CV, an inbox full of messages from old work friends and dodgy messages from recruiters. Perhaps some of us even have a twitter handle floating around cyber space, rarely used and never retweeted. For many of us this is the height of social interaction – job done – we’re ‘out there’.

But in a business sense; where is the strategy, the engagement, essentially the increase in leads, discussions and contracts?

Without giving away too many tricks of the trade Social Media for business begins way before you put your company name next to a twitter handle. Because let’s be honest there’s nothing worse than a company twitter page with no pictures, no URL link and no tweets. This looks like you tried and failed! You need to execute and deploy a Social Media Strategy largely based on what you would like to achieve:

• Do you want to drive traffic to your website?
• Do you want to deal with customer queries?
• Do you want to promote your products or services?
• Or simply keep an eye on the competitor.

Whichever combination you wish to achieve Social Media marries your business with your target market. Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube and Twitter are now your perfect CRM tools.

Irrespective of age you need someone with the intellectual sustenance to devise and implement your Social Media strategy. Of course if the ever-conscious online social sphere is a hurdle too high for your company, seek help! After all you’d get help with your website wouldn’t you?