When talking with departments, it became clear that job roles and descriptions within digital engagement varied greatly. We thought it might be helpful for us to explain what our social team looks like, and who is responsible for what on a day-to-day basis.
The structure of a social team will vary based on the size of an organisation and the resources available. Although each team member should be able to cross-contribute and chip in when needed, an optimum team consists of; a dedicated strategist, community manager, and a design resource of some description. (This can be a part-time designer/illustrator).
Social Media Strategist
A good community manager (CM) will be able to create reports and analyse trends, but a strategist will be able to take this a step further (and also enable the CM the time required to embed themselves in the community).
The social strategist will set up your monitoring and analytics tools, define your KPIs, and apply the learnings to a continually evolving social strategy.
Your social strategist will write the wider social media strategy, and create a content strategy based on this. Your strategist is the touch point for others in your organisation looking for advice on social media and how to use it.
Alongside this, it is the strategists job to plan campaigns, keep up to date with all the latest happenings in the social space, and think about ways of developing content for (appropriate) new platforms.
Community Manager
As a direct link between you and your users, the community manager (CM) is on the front line of your digital comms.
A CM ensures that the relevant content is being shared with your community, as well as being the touch point for all your social customer service. They assist the strategist in creation of weekly content plans, and give their unique perspective on audience analysis, performance data, and emerging trends.
Without a doubt, the most important part of a CM’s role is listening to what your community are saying. As well as customer service, they are also responsible for basic tracking around keywords and hashtags relevant to your organisation. Reactivity is key, and by providing timely, helpful content and support, a CM can help change user sentiment.
Finally, a CM will deliver product feedback to the right team, and help to shape future product iterations
Design Resource
It's clearly possible to write a good text update, but you can increase your engagement exponentially by creating an image to accompany it.
For this reason, having some sort of design resource in your team is a huge help. Whether this is a separate role, a designer on loan, or a community manager with some Photoshop skills is entirely dependent on your team size and budget. But, being able to create visual content for your social channels in real time, is an undeniable asset.
5 comments
Comment by Steph Gray posted on
Thanks for sharing - reminds me of the roles I pulled out here (and that some things stay the same, even though the tools change). Maybe still a role for social/digital mentors?
http://www.slideshare.net/lesteph/describing-roles-within-digital-engagement
Comment by Kim Townend posted on
Thanks Steph. I think there's definitely still a role for people who educate others. Our team here is tiny, so the mentor role is included in the strategy remit.
Comment by Dave Briggs posted on
Thanks for sharing this! It would be great to have a bit more on how specifically stuff happens within the team.
As Steph points out, he covered off the generic roles stuff in 2009. What I would love to hear about would be the tools and activities that you guys are using and doing on a daily basis. That would be awesome so those of us around government could pick up some new tips and tricks.
Comment by Kim Townend posted on
Hi Dave, thanks for you comment. It sounds like we've recently published the kind of guidance you're looking for in our Social Media Playbook. Hope it helps!
Comment by Dave Briggs posted on
Thanks - and sorry if my comment sounded grumpy. Wasn't intended to. Maybe that's why we have emoji?