When budgets are tight and resources are stretched thin, it can be hard to cover all the places you want to be in social media. But even if adding staff isn’t an option, there are other ways you can add talent without adding to the budget.
Where to look:
- Support staff. Secretaries, administrative assistants, and even your smart interns can be excellent resources to help you in your social media engagement. While you may reserve outreach for those that are trained in doing so, these colleagues can help you monitor and keep track of important conversations.
- Customer service. The folks who answer your phones and respond to customers all day are generally excellent at doing it online, too. A growing trend in corporate social media is to shift a few talented customer service reps from the call centers to focus on online support and engagement.
- Fan community leaders. Communities are often a core component to a social media program, and they can also demand a lot of resources. But a few savvy marketers are finding ways to shift community ownership and management to the community members themselves. Not only does it relieve stress on internal resources, but the fans love it, too.