Is your company looking to start social media strategy?

I was reading a blog post from @kim’s tweet.  It shows us the 6 ways of hiring social media talents to help companies in their social media strategy.

I think it is true in that post.  Basically, companies are now looking out to start their very own social media strategy.  However, they are lacking of social media talents who like to mingle around in the social media networks.  No matter how much they are outsourcing their social media work, it may not be a good idea that there is no one within the company to take care of its interest…

If you were to compare between…

Asking an external company to take care of your social media communications

VERSUS

asking your own employee to take care of your social media communications…

Who will you choose?

I think it is true that it is really hard to find a suitable person who has deep expertise in social media, and also has plenty of practical professional experience who fit easily into the business culture.

But it’s often to see anybody who has either one of the abilities.  And those who have plenty of practical professional experience are usually stubborn to listen to someone who are much more inexperienced in business culture and yet with plenty of social media experiences… (I want to bold and highlight that sentence so as to stress on how a social media strategy can become an eventual failure…)

And when you are looking out for social media talents, I think most of social media talents like to focus their time on how to create or share better contents with their community.  They like to socialize around, and they like to have transparency in their lives… And social media is the way to go…

So how to identify fake social media talents?  I think it’s pretty easy.  First of all, fake social media talents are usually the ones who will cover up the truth with lies so as to keep their “good reputation”.  And I think it is easy to know when you are working with the agency or employee long enough.  Some simply cannot resist the thought of protecting their reputation by telling white lies…  It’s not only detrimental to the company potentially, this person may not have a good relationship with the company at all…

On the other hand, how do you identify real social media talents?  First of all, I think @kim’s tweet is a good example to look at.  Secondly, it is also true that this person should have quite a good relationship with the people around.  Just imagine that you are going to hand over all your company’s online communication to this one person’s hand… This person must have certain caliber to help the company to grow its social media appearance.

Hence, I think it is critical to have social media talents in your company before you start thinking of a social media strategy…

Image Credit: Intersection Consulting