Comments on: We Will See Fewer “Head of Social Media” Roles in 2013

By: Steve Manning

Steve Manning — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 17:17:00 +0000

You see blog posts like this from time to time begging for attention by proclaiming that people’s livelihoods are threatened. This type of thinking is called reasoning from the specific to the general. In other words, writer observes a handful of companies that have had some success in integrating social throughout the organization, therefore many or most companies have figured social out, therefore all those companies’ departments can do it on their own, therefore social media directors are obsolete. Even if that were true, if the world worked that way companies would no longer have communications directors of any kind — print, video, intranet — all those positions would be obsolete because the departments can do it themselves and don’t need any guidance any more. The idea falls apart after about a millisecond of examination.

By: btrandolph

btrandolph — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:12:00 +0000

so instead of “Director of Social Media,” we’ll see “Director of Social Media Excellence.” Should help Vistaprint.

By: Adriel Sanchez

Adriel Sanchez — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 17:15:00 +0000

Agree that social media is EVERYONE’s responsibility. Agree that placing social media in a silo does not encourage the right behavior. But a centralized function is necessary to (a) establish and manage governance, processes, and risk management and (b) drive constantly evolving best practices. The latter may be absorbed into the ‘core’ functions around the org as we move past the incubation period of social, but there will always be a need for the former.

By: Stevie Wilson

Stevie Wilson — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 22:32:00 +0000

900 director positions in NYC alone? we don’t have that many openings in all of So. Ca. though we should have more.

By: Shawn Alain

Shawn Alain — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 16:47:00 +0000

Absolutely. If it’s not centralized it’s just chaos.

By: Cision NA

Cision NA — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 16:57:00 +0000

There are some good points here. The way organizations use social media is evolving right now, and will continue to evolve into 2013 and beyond. For the immediate future though, I do think social media managers, and heads of social media, will still be essential to most brands. If a company has too many social media outlets, customers and clients get confused. I do see it expanding, but I think it still needs to be centralized to some degree.

By: Vanessa Sain-Dieguez

Vanessa Sain-Dieguez — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 15:14:00 +0000

I completely agree with your prediction – but not sure we’ll get there so fast in 2013. The more people that are fully trained, understand, and practice social media in an organization the better. But as you point out, you still need someone in the middle watching everything that is going on and guiding the enterprise forward. For some organizations this will be one person, for some it is a full Center of Excellence made of multiple individuals. Overall will be an interesting trend to watch.

By: Shawn Alain

Shawn Alain — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 14:22:00 +0000

Your idea sounds like it would be complete chaos having 10 different departments wrestling with the same social media and no one to be the voice of guidance. My prediction would be the exact opposite.

By: Dave Kearns

Dave Kearns — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 14:16:00 +0000

Very insightful piece. Nice Work!