Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web

Chapter 22. Divide and Conquer: Building Marketing and Service Teams Around Social Media Programs

Over the years, I've explored the drivers that propel businesses into the social world, analyzing their initial steps and observations, and planning and implementation processes, as well as how they assess and apply resources.

The most common motives to experiment or dive into social media are spurred through a proactive position of innovation, competition, and championing, or from a reaction-based set of circumstances that created necessity or a sense of urgency.

It's a moment characterized by "Ah-ha" or "Uh-oh...."

SOCIAL MEDIA TAKES A COMMUNITY EFFORT

If we've learned anything in this book thus far, it's that any one person or group does not own socially rooted conversations; they simply map to them. In fact, your customers are among the most influential stakeholders present today, and without guidance or participation, they may aimlessly steer the impressions and perceptions of your brand. The simple truth is that everyone owns socialized media, including "you." Perhaps it's better said this way: The conversation is omnipresent and not defined, steered, or controlled by any one entity. We are merely participants in a greater production. We determine our role as an engaged organization as well as individuals in cooperation with the powers that be.

Truthfully, many departments will be forced to socialize, and therefore require social programs at the departmental level to be executed at ...