CHAPTER 6
Staffing and Structuring
Hell, there are no rules here. We’re trying to accomplish something.
—Thomas Edison
There’s a group of people out there whom we refer to as “the self-appointed guardians of the purity of social media.” Let’s call them the SAGPOSMs. Or the sag possums.
The sag possums will tell you that social media needs to be free and unrestricted, across the enterprise, starting right now. They’ll tell you that employees will figure out how to do social media by themselves and they’ll inherently know not to say or do anything that could cause problems.
They’ll tell you that social media should never be used to sell. They’ll tell you that you can’t measure the ROI of social media and that you shouldn’t even try.
Oh, and they’ll tell you that the best person to lead social media within your organization is your CEO.
The sag possums do not work for big companies.
The sag possums will also tell you that, because social media should be part of everybody’s job, nobody should have a title like social media manager.
We agree with them. But we agree with them in maybe 2013.
When Dave applied for the social media manager job at SAS, he told people he didn’t want to build a social media department. He wanted to work to integrate social media into all departments and identify and develop social media champions within each department. He told people that if he did his job right, it wouldn’t be necessary within a few years.
Is that because of his own inherently self-destructive ...
