Coordinating Social Media Across the Organization

Coordinating social media across an organization is no small task. Sure, it seems easy enough on the surface. But, many companies take somewhat of a laissez-faire approach and end up using social media channels as either a giant digital bulletin board of events or an uninspiring photo collection of ice cream socials and employee retirement parties. Resist. Let’s get serious and achieve real success. [Tweet “It’s time to step it up and align social with your company’s marketing efforts.”] Here’s how:

Strategize your social

Start by defining your goals. What are you trying to say and who is your audience? Will your social media presence serve to generate leads for your business or act as customer support? (It’s ok to answer “yes” to both questions.) Define what you want to achieve and set realistic, measurable goals. Keep in mind, you don’t have to be on every social platform, just the ones that make the most sense for your brand. Take time to develop a social media policy that includes both internal and external audiences. Before you launch a presence on social, have a comprehensive crisis communication plan and a guide for how to best respond to comments, both positive and negative. If you need some pointers on developing a social media strategy, read this blog. If you’re looking for a good resource on determining which CRM to use as your social media scheduling platforms, reference our CRM Comparison Guide.

Coordinate and communicate

Who’s heading up this initiative? Without a clear leader, your efforts for coordinating social media across your company will result in a lot of frustration because there’s no point person and no consistency. Many organizations designate the marketing manager to lead the charge. If you’re assigning the role to someone a little lower down the corporate ladder, that’s ok, but remember that this is no task for an intern. You’re going to get back the effort you put in and a successful social media presence depends on leadership from seasoned marketing professionals. My recommendation is to have one person “own” your social media presence and designate one person in each department to be an assistant. Their role will be to keep communication lines open and to share their department’s content. An added bonus of this social media council is that everyone understands the organization’s brand, can learn social media best practices together and shares in its success. A rising tide definitely lifts all boats. This blog can help you organize a social media council, and this interactive Social Media Calendar can get everybody on the same page about company goals and be a good reference for keeping track of who your competitors are and how they may have handled crises communication.

Stand your ground

Now that you have a strategy and people in place to help with your efforts, stand your ground! This is no time to second guess your rule against plastering poorly-designed newsletters to your social. Be prepared, it’s inevitable that you’ll receive an email asking if you can “just put this on Facebook.” No, you can’t. Not until it falls in line with your organization’s brand guidelines and is optimized for the platform you’re sharing it on. I’m talking a post that is relevant not only to your employees but everyone else who’s following your page. It makes no sense to share an internal event to a public-facing platform. With that line drawn neatly in the sand, I do want you to accept just about anything that’s sent your way. Keep a folder and organize your content for safe keeping. Those ice cream social photos may not do you much good on their own, but they can fit in nicely with posts about National Ice Cream Day or a Throwback Thursday. Accept all content and make no promises as to when or if it’ll be shared. Breeze over this blog on the best kind of content for Instagram.

Measure results

You’ve got buy-in and you have plenty of content, now what? It’s time to pay attention to your metrics. Are you reaching the goals outlined in Step One? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram offer incredible insights and can tell you everything from who follows your page and what kind of content they prefer to the best time to post and what your competition is sharing. Keep track of the measurements and continually adjust your approach. If your audience is growing and your engagement rate is on-par or above average, you’re doing it right.

Coordinating social media across an organization takes patience and determination. It’s not always easy to get buy-in from departments and support from upper management. Keep track of your successes and use them in your favor. Show what’s working and be inclusive. Most of all, have fun. Make your brand approachable and take the time to actively respond to follower comments. After all, it is called social media. Reference our CMS Comparison Guide to help keep you on track and measure your analytics.

From developing strategies to monitoring and daily posting, we have a team of experts ready to help your organization reach success on social media. Let’s start the conversation.

Updated: Apr 13, 2022