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Clear Sense of Purpose

We can’t be everything to everyone. The key is to recognize the organizational goals and to then build a scope of involvement from the priorities – i.e. based on our goals, our available resources, the available channels and opportunities for participation, which ones of these opportunities are we best-suited to pursue? Which avenues are we staying away from? What levels of participation are we aiming for? We don’t need to be in everything, but we do need to know why we are participating in specific spaces and why we’re staying out of others.

Dedicated Budget

As with anything, social media requires resources. Many of the social media tools may be freely available, but free to use does not equate to no cost to set up and implement.

At a minimum, budget is required to either hire / appoint the people with the required skills, knowledge, and experience. Regardless of whether these are internal hires or external contractors or a combination of both, resources need to be made available to properly support initiatives – both for the initial setup as well as the on-going support. Given the constantly changing nature of digital media, it is vital to identify a source of funding to cover the operational expenses incurred by this need for on-going support.

Depending on the nature and scope of the medium, additional expenses may be incurred for infrastructural requirements, software licensing, and production tools (e.g. cameras, video cameras, audio recorders, laptops).

Defined Roles / Core Competencies

The following table provides an outline of the different roles to be filled with any social media project. Note that in some cases a role may be filled by multiple people and that conversely some people may be able to fill multiple roles. The key is to have all of these competencies covered within the team.

Role	What does this role fulfill?	What happens when this role is not filled?
Sponsors (governance, guidelines)	Provides authority to provide direction on organizational goals, and to make decisions regarding resourcing and policy	Decision-making becomes slowed by internal discussions around priorities; Resource needs are not met, projects can’t get off the ground or those that do inevitably stagnate
Community & Communications Manager	Handles copywriting on public-facing spaces; Handles internal communication to provide updates to Sponsors, internal teams, and internal communications staff; Takes lead in issue resolution, particularly with respects to identifying and contacting internal stakeholders; Sets overall communications strategy and participates in social media spaces alongside Social Media Coordinator(s); Must have an intimate understanding of the culture of social media, as well as strong understanding of the internal organization	There is no clear and consistent voice either internally to communicate initiatives, nor externally in promotions or direct efforts in social media spaces; Absence of a clear community representative leads to group-think effect where nobody takes ownership for the organization’s voice in social media, and emerging issues go unresolved
Social Media Coordinator(s)	Frontline representatives of the organization that participate in the social media spaces on behalf of the organization; Produces content (stories/articles, photos, videos); Participates by listening, monitoring, and actively responding; Provides input to Community & Communications Manager in terms of emerging issues Must find a free reign to adopt a natural (authentic) voice	The faceless entity of the organization has a diminished ability to make meaningful connections; The burden of monitoring and responding to the multiple channels, topics and trends becomes too much for any single individual to adequately manage; There is no one to produce content for the organization to contribute into the social media ecosphere
Strategist & Advocate	Monitors trends, best practices, case studies; Carries out research such as competitive & situation analysis; Researches technical requirements of external services and evaluates for fit of use; Reviews progress of internal projects; Serves as an advocate to help educate the internal team; Provides reports and summaries for the purpose of making adjustments to existing products and services, as well as identifying new opportunities; Must have time to conduct research, and a method/structure for disseminating information internally; Must have a firm grasp on the technical, organizational, and communication constraints and possibilities	Discussions and planning around existing or new projects get distracted by the latest shiny tool; Decision-making becomes reactive instead of proactive; Decisions may be misinformed or missing the broader context required to make an informed decision
Product Manager	Works with Community & Communications Manager to identify improvements, modifications, changes, additions to product / property roadmap to any internal digital properties Must have a firm grasp on the technical, organizational, and communication constraints and possibilities	Design and development of any internal project happens haphazardly; Decisions lack technical input and may prove to be unrealistic or not even possible
Project Manager	Oversees coordination of all aspects of the initiative and various sub-projects from a resourcing and accountability perspective; Responsible for ensuring greatest alignment of objectives and resourcing and measuring performance Role is likely to be assumed by either the Community & Communications Manager or the Product Manager	Project scopes grow as the team is unable to prioritize what can be achieved and what should be done with the available resources; Outcomes are not recorded, impact of social media efforts remains unknown
Technical Developers & Designers	Hands-on role in producing online spaces owned and operated by the organization; Includes web programmers/developers, designers, user experience specialists; Work with internal systems as well as external services; Establish conventions and carry out production of related digital assets	There is no one to actually do what everyone has dreamed up;