Reinventing marketing and social media relations

I was pitched by a blogger last week about "social media relations" and how it needs to be instituted as a new role within the reinvention of marketing organizations.

I disagree.

Why do marketers need to reinvent marketing?  To respond effectively to environmental changes, driven by technology - specifically, social computing.  Reinvention entails a new approach to doing business - not just tacking on a new operating unit.  Look at what happened during the dot-com boom of the late 1990's - businesses dropped large amounts of cash to jump-start new digital marketing units.  Unfortunately many of those investments were wasted and the interactive marketing organization has a quite different look today than it did seven years ago.

Social media relations means that the public relations function - and other departments - need to get used to a two-way dialogue with consumers.  This can only happen through a cultural shift in communication strategy, along with guidelines to help people get started.  The WOMMA Ethics Code is a great place to start.

What do you think - does social computing warrant the creation of a new social media relations function within marketing?

Comments

[Antony Mayfield]

Media and marketing must completely reinvent themselves. Adding a social media relations function would be a sticking-plaster solution when what is needed is root and brand renewal of media and comms thinking, models and tools.

[Nathan Gilliatt]

Peter, I'm not so sure that we disagree. I think we're talking about different things. It wasn't my intent to focus on the org chart; instead, I was sketching out an activity that companies need to undertake to ensure an organized response to the challenges of social media. It comes down to this: in most companies, someone needs to be the point person for getting the company up to speed on social media/social computing and how it affects the business.

http://net-savvy.com/executive/defining-social-media-relation.html

Some companies already get it. The big IT vendors have enough knowledge scattered around (and internal use of the technologies) that it's probably fair to expect the functional groups to figure out social media. But more companies don't get it--witness the surveys of companies that don't monitor blogs and CEOs who don't think it's important to engage them in a crisis. When those companies decide to figure out social media, someone is going to need to take the lead. That's the role I'm talking about, whether it appears as a new box on the org chart or not.

Beyond the transition period, companies will still need to coordinate some activities, such as monitoring and responding to social media. Someone is going to be the internal contact for the online monitoring service and should be aware of the company's response. We're also still seeing a steady stream of new services, and if nobody in marketing is responsible for keeping up with it, then it will default to an IT role (and the default answer will be "no").

Focus on the activity, not the label or the org chart. Do we really disagree on the activities a company should undertake?