My perspective is that a strategic HR function won’t just want to be part of the conversation, but to own it. However, the conversation should be about social capital ie the outcome, not social media, the activity.

And I’d expect operational responsibility for this to be delegated to IT.

See: http://blog.social-advantage.com/2009/10/hrs-responsibility-for-social-capital.html

Cheers, Jon.

Like others here, I think the issue isn’t so much competence as appropriateness. The two are, of course, not entirely separate: across different organisations, the HR function and remit can be defined very differently – although in my own working experience (perhaps there is an element of a UK/European perspective here too?), I’m not sure I’d see HR as the home or definers of organisational culture: that seems to me to come from a broader stream of influences, including both senior and line management.

Two points strike me about the debate so far. Firstly, I get the impression that ‘social media’ is still being seen more as a broadcast medium rather than an interactive one. I think – as the number of comments that many of your own posts stimulate would seem to support – that social media is rather more in the latter camp. It’s not just about ‘getting your message out there’, it’s about interacting with existing and potential customers, industry followers and commentators and the wider world. It’s not advertising: that would be to assume that people will willing give up their time to actively choose to read your advertising. And I think a degree of realism is needed there!

Secondly, very few people seem to be talking about the audience. Given that social media is mostly textual, and speaking as someone who is fundamentally a writer, I can’t forget one ‘golden rule’ with any ‘corporate communication’: the first consideration is the audience. As a reader of other people’s blogs, it’s their ability to interest, stimulate or engage me that matters most to me, not the extent to which they are ‘on message’.

(Jakob Nielsen, as a guru of usability and audience interaction in all matter web, also popped into my head: one of the most enduring faux pas he notes is that companies write websites – and nowadays run blogs et al – with themselves in mind. As he wisely points out, you are not your own audience. As a reader of someone’s website, for instance, I’m not interested in their corporate structure, or having their products and services parcelled into blocks according to their divisional breakdown, I want to quickly and easily find the information that matters to me. The features would help too: I know marketing emphasises benefits over features, but as a buyer I’d like to think I can work out the benefits for myself. My purchasing questions are more usually ‘does it do x and does it come with y and z?)

This implies that to identify the most effective ‘owner’ of social media within an organisation, you start by identifying your audience and understanding what they want to hear/read/see. Having done that, you identify which department/individuals within the organisation are best placed to use social media to meet their needs and interact with them.

Less politely, and forgive me for the bluntness, if I want to understand an organisation’s services, products, its relationship with its customers, ‘HR’ isn’t the department I would initially think of interacting with. My instinct says the role falls across many functions – but probably mostly marketing and PR (but without the spin), and operations (I may have detailed questions, and I might prefer their responses to a salesmans). But if one outcome of the web in general, and social media in particular, is to make organisations more porous – to open them up to real-time interaction with the outside world – then social media has to be inherently cross-functional. (And audiences are media-savvy enough to know when they’re being ‘spun at’, when someone is steering the conversation back to ‘the party line’: we are wary of what – in the UK – might be referred to as ‘a politician’s answer’.)

There’s also a question of knowledge. I blog myself, and am fundamentally a writer. My internal involvement is in both marketing and PR and in a more operational role: while I ‘know our line’, I also ‘know what we do’ and have an understanding of the roles and concerns of those we want to reach and communicate with. I live in hope that the content I generate is stimulating and informative, and knowledgeable enough to be credible, relevant and interesting. But I work with colleagues from across the organisation on a daily basis, including in our social media activity.

Depending on a company’s industry sector, some HR departments and professionals might be able to do that, but I wouldn’t say that was guaranteed. (If the things your audience want to read about and discuss are areas where HR are knowledgeable then maybe you are the best people to do so, but how often is that going to be true?)
Depending on organisational structures, I’m tempted to say that ‘Client Managers’ or ‘Sales Support’ (if that role exists) are actually the most appropriate: the people closest to those you are communicating with, but not in an explicit ‘sales’ activity. (We blog, and use social media, mostly to strengthen existing relationships and build new ones: to cut to the chase, the relationships are truly beneficial when they lead to income. Your social media contacts could just phone your sales team, but they are approaching you on a less direct ‘sell me something’ basis; a less direct ‘buy this’ response seems appropriate.)

I think what I’m ultimately saying is that, at its best – by which I mean the most relevant to those reading and interacting with it – social media is a new role that draws from across the organisation. That certainly doesn’t exclude HR, but ‘who should be owning it’ is a complex question, and ‘which existing empire should this be annexed by’ (and I wish I’d thought of a nicer way of saying that!) seems to be the wrong approach to asking the question.

I wonder with the similarities between HR and Marketing if separate academic coursework is necessary (beyond employment law). Or would a principles of marketing course provide the requisite content?

Focusing on transformational work is key. Any survey I read about what keeps CEO’s up at night points to talent acquisition and retention. The question then becomes how is human resources spending their time.

If you haven’t seen it today, Brand For Talent blog had a terrific post on the “New Role in HR: A Hybrid”. The post elaborates on the HR+Marketing concept and provides a real-life example from Shell Oil Company.