Social media being taken away from IT

The ad-hoc approach to social media in which marketing, IT and service departments all share the responsibility is being phased out, with 69 per cent of UK businesses planning to appoint web community managers this year.

A survey of 250 UK marketing managers by EPiServer shows that 28 per cent have already acted to end this fragmented approach by employing a dedicated social media manager. 73 per cent will also create online communities within the next 12 months to compliment activity on broader sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter.

The IT support challenge is to facilitate these communities by building user-friendly platforms, and continuing to communicate with customer and business users alike to ensure IT issues are the forefront of thinking.

In 51 per cent of cases, social media activity is handled by the marketing manager, 21 per cent have given the role to a PR executive while 21 per cent of respondents leave the job to IT.

Maria Wasing, VP at EPiServer says that embracing social media can help IT managers align more closely with other departments. “(Social) touches many or all parts of the organisation, from marketing and IT through to customer service and HR. And that’s a good thing, as it forces companies to become more transparent and encourages them to listen to customers in new ways.”