SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social media practices and issues.
This week, we asked: Does your company have a position solely dedicated to social media management?
- No — 58%
- Yes — 42%
This past week, HootSuite’s Ryan Holmes wrote that a “sea change” in business social media use has resulted in social tools becoming “everyone’s responsibility.” This week’s poll certainly reflects that trend. Even if social media is a big part of your job, the (short) era of it being the only part of your job is clearly on the way out.
But this also could be an issues of size. If you’re a company as large as Procter and Gamble or SAP, for example, having a dedicated social media manager, or even team, makes sense. After all, if social is everyone’s responsibility, who’s making sure that “everyone” is staying on the right track? Managing social media may turn out to be more about managing people than various accounts.
But as Holmes writes, even if the social media manager completely disappears, social is here to stay. There will still be those who are confused by it, those who can do it and those who can do it well. Being in that latter category is likely to bring all kinds of advantages, for yourself and your present and future employers.