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Who ‘owns’ social media?

Debate about who should ‘own’ social media is rife. Dependent on who you’re talking to – the ad agency, the marketing manager, the PR consultant, the argument predictably concludes in their favour, so how does a company decide?

The social media train continues to gather speed and momentum and is now an essential consideration for all marketing savvy organisations.  Facebook has over 600 million users worldwide and 1.5 million businesses have active pages.  LinkedIn has 100 million business users and is growing at a rate of 1 million new users every week.  Twitter has 156 million registered users and YouTube attracted 144 million viewers in just one month last year.  These are clearly significant potential audiences offering opportunities for brands and organisations to tap into.

However, it is important to keep social media in perspective.  There are many thousands of social media forums attracting niche interest audiences but, as detailed above, there are really only a handful of general interest channels, which cross cultures and demographics and attract huge numbers of audiences.

These are where most organisations are focusing their efforts and as businesses clamour for a share of voice here, it is all too easy to be caught up in the language and excitement of the fast moving ethereal world and forget that, to be worthwhile and effective, social media must be part of an integrated marketing and communications strategy, firmly rooted in achieving business objectives.  It is just one channel in a multitude of others, tried and tested over time.

With this in mind, the integrated marketing agency, with a sound successful track record, which now has the skills and experience to offer social media as a communications channel where appropriate, is surely the best option.  Through a considered strategic approach they will have remained at the forefront of all emerging media over the years, monitoring and analysing its development and advising clients appropriately, thus helped build successful businesses and brands.  These agencies are at odds with the raft of new highbred companies and consultants purporting to ‘do’ social media or to be social media ‘experts’.  Expertise is invaluable but surely loses its value if divorced from the bigger picture?

There is also the hotly contested question of whether social media should be ‘owned’ in-house or externally.  As long as social media is viewed as just one part of the mix – a valuable and expanding channel but nonetheless just one route to market, and one part of a communications strategy, then internal or external ‘ownership’ is irrelevant.  It should sit with the marketing and communications team in charge of making the strategic decisions designed to build business.