Who owns conversation? IDK, but you better be facilitating it!

Posted by Justin Goldsborough | 2 comments

Photo from premohoopsrecruiting.com

I wasn’t going to write about this tonight. I have a friend writing a guest post  for next week about the BS misrepresentation of the PR industry The Economist posted last month. And I wanted to write about display ads or promoted tweets. But then, as has been known to happen, a Twitter conversation changed my mind.

I was ranting about The Economist story and @mktgdouchebag and I started chatting. I know, his Twitter handle is a bit odd. But the dude knows what he’s talking about and he’s a huge proponent of integrated marketing communications (IMC). I won’t recount the conversation here, but instead discuss the main idea and where it led me.

People are always asking who should own social media? Or who is best suited to manage conversation. If I had to pick a department, I would pick PR. Yes, I work in PR and yes, I’m extremely biased. But I would pick PR because of our industry’s tradition of working in earned media. But that’s another post for another time.

Let me ask you a question. Do you think your customers give a (insert your favorite four-letter word) about who owns social media and conversation inside a company? I guarantee you they don’t. What they care about is getting their questions resolved and issues fixed through whatever point(s) of engagement with your brand they choose. That’s it, end of story. Oh yeah, and it helps if your product rocks and your CEO wears black turtlenecks and unveils sick new iDevices in front of huge movie screens .

The Economist story tried to say that PR, marketing and advertising can all use social media the same exact way by taking their traditional tactics and putting them in a social media box. There is so much wrong with that POV that I won’t even begin to start — wait for the guest post next week or talk about it with some #pr20chatters here.

But The Economist did have one thing right. PR, marketing, advertising and every other department (ok, maybe not every, but you get my drift) inside your company or client’s business need to figure out how to use social media and whatever other platforms they need to master to effectively work together to meet their customers’ needs.

How might this play out? Well, my favorite example — because customer service (CS) can be the best form of PR, marketing and advertising — is one of the IMC buckets coming across a CS issue online and working quickly with the CS team to acknowledge and provide a resolution. If the CS team is comfortable using IMC channels to solve the problem, all the better. You’ve probably heard that type of example a million times. But here’s another one that’s a bit different.

Your CS or PR teams may not always have enough resources to listen and respond to customer inquiries or feedback. Or to generate new content that shows thought leadership and creates brand relevancy. Marketing and advertising may not have done this type of work in the past because it’s not paid media or ad related. But it’s the way the customer wants to engage with your brand. In this situation, can you team up across departments to facilitate conversation and community, even if you have to reallocate resources and responsibilities and do your job in a way you aren’t used to doing it?

Here’s a news flash: If you can’t, you are in big trouble. But if you can, you have a huge career opportunity in front of you. Silos are out like, what does the Miller Lite commercial say, “acid-wash jean shorts?” Companies are losing patience for silos and your customers have no patience for them. The days of saying “that’s not my job” or “that’s our turf” are coming to an end.  But if you can identify how to do your job differently to meet business objectives, if you can reprioritize with the customer in mind, there’s no way leadership — and more importantly, your customers — won’t respect that. There’s no way.

Just a few years ago, PR was the first department to get cut when the economy headed south. Then opportunity presented itself for PR and those who do earned media because of social media and a new ability to build relationships. But PR can’t do it alone either and thinking we can is just as bad of a silo mentality as the one we criticize our peer departments for exhibiting.

Study conversation. Analyze your customers. Identify how they want to communicate and facilitate that conversation, whether it be through social media or another channel. And most importantly, work together to make that conversation productive and entertaining for your customers. If you keep worrying about who owns what and whose turf is whose, the only thing you’ll be facilitating is your company’s and customers’ frustration.