November 23, 2009 131 Comments

Social Media Needs To Become a Team Sport

New England Patroits I watched a few football games on my cross-country flight yesterday. What I came away with was the realization of just how important the entire team is to the game. I watched several situations where a player caused his team some grief or heartache by making a poor choice or by executing poorly on a goal. I also saw the absolute chain of command that reaches all the way from an active owner, to the head coach, to the quarterback, and down into the entire team. No one in the system makes a decision independent of the greater outcome, and yet, everyone has responsibility to move independently within the system.

It dawns on me that social media is filled with solo players.

It’s no surprise that so many people have trouble convincing companies to take an action to adopt social media tools and methods. The company is a team that has some sense of a system, and many of us are rushing in and saying that this set of tools is really the next big thing, and yet, when the company looks at what we’re talking about, it seems like a solo sport, the way we talk about it.

Is this making sense?

We think about companies using social media and we name their one person assigned to the task. Sometimes a company will have a few more employees doing it, but then they’re just shadows of the functions of the “main” person doing it. A team isn’t made up of only quarterbacks. I watched last night how kickers could impact a game. I watched how linemen have to switch from pushing people to running hard when the opportunity came up (multi-talented).

We’re building a cluster of solo players out there on the field when what is necessary is a team methodology with all kinds of touchpoints, system connectors, and deeper communications/strategy channels. I, for one, intend to change the way I present this to the large companies I work with. And though the analogy doesn’t hold as accurately for a very small business, you can understand how the integrated approach, with many hands in the social media huddle, is the better way to play.

What say you?

Photo credit Paul Keleher

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  • http://www.1918.com/ 1918

    Elizabeth – you're always asking good questions. I love the idea of teaching social scalability.

  • http://elizabethpottsweinstein.com ElizabethPW

    ooo, I love that: “social scalability”

  • http://elizabethpottsweinstein.com ElizabethPW

    and really, social media is just part of building relationships … and building relationships *is* business.

    but since many businesses (both large and small) are in the business of the force/push/sale, of course they don't get the idea of using social media to build relationships. because that's not what they are already doing.

    for those of us who inherently build relationships in the rest of our marketing, social media is just another tool to integrate into our entire business.

  • http://www.lynetteradio.com LynetteRadio

    Our crew here all play to their strengths – some are more behind the scenes & some are in the spotlight. All of us have a say and all of us have softer spots in our expertise. We fill in the voids of each other. Personally I think it has *nothing* to do with social media (cough…) and everything to running and being a part of a highly functioning small agile business. Larger businesses (1000+) must have a hard time in my opinion unless they can somehow hit upon some morphed version of Dunbar's number.

  • http://www.jtrigsby.com jtrigsby

    Yes! That is right on!

    Now how do you convince those in the force/push/sale mode to change their errant ways?

  • christackett

    Great analogy, Chris.

    At TreeHugger.com and PlanetGreen.com, I've tried to turn social media into more of a team sport, to use your analogy. Instead of just staying heads-down and doing my own thing without explaining the reasoning and processes to the rest of the team, I've done many training sessions to teach best practices and strategy with the a few select tools so that the writers and producers can each play a role in the process of sharing our content with the world. It hasn't always gone as well as I'd like and some on the team like it more than others (to put it nicely) but overall I think it's been a big success. Businesses just can't allow social media to be a one-man job. It is and requires so much more than that. If you're curious about how this has gone, I'd love to chat. And thanks for the analogy. I'll be sharing this w/ the team.

    Cheers,
    Chris Tackett
    @christackett

  • http://elizabethpottsweinstein.com ElizabethPW

    I wish I knew the easy answer (if I did, I would make billions as a consultant for that magic tip). That's one reason I became an entrepreneur, so I didn't have to spend more time explaining to bosses why they were wrong. ;)

    But a lot of the convincing is more and more evidence (case studies, tracking data, etc.) that it works (and how competitors are using it the *right* way to get amazing results), and that the old ways don't work.

    And like Chris says in his post, making social media not be a “thing that we do” or a “tool that we use” but just one part of the overall integrated business plan … and inherently making that business plan different (relationship based, instead of transaction based).

  • http://www.karilonning.com Kari Lønning

    I was introduced social media this spring via Simon Ford. I've seen the best and worst of egos at play since then. One of the most positive experiences I've had was watching videos of a conference hosted by the US Embassy in Zagreb, Croatia http://bit.ly/7gWkMq (The video's sound isn't good but the cross cultural discussion was. Kent Collins, David Mathison, and J. Eric Braun were the guest speakers from the US.)

  • http://twitter.com/suzannesalas suzanne salas

    I also entirely agree as do most. Everyone needs to be on board and contribute to a company's social media efforts. By all means give several people access to the blogging platform, twitter accounts, facebook account, etc.

    However, I do believe there needs to be one “owner”–a coach– to stick with the analogy. Someone who is responsible for ensuring that goals are identified, the strategy is executed and measurements occur. If those tasks fall amongst the entire team or company, then things risk falling through the cracks, i.e. people get too busy with the functional roles and things begin to falter or become stale.

    I think often times companies fail at social media not because of wrong intent or even initial execution, but because that coach isn't there being held responsible and pushing/motivating the team.

  • http://www.kherize5.com Suzanne Vara

    Chris
    I am there on what you are saying however within a corporate structure how realistically will they be able to effectively work as a cohesive unit. Staying with the football analogy when a kicker shanks the kick there is nothing that the offense could do at that point. Albeit they could have scored a TD and avoid the FG but not every visit to the red zone ends up with a TD – just as every lead does not land a sale.

    In the case where there a pass is intercepted – did the QB throw to the wrong spot or did the WR run the wrong route? Who made the mistake or was the defense just that good? In a corporate environment having many hands in the huddle seems as if there will be a lot of finger pointing to different departments in the event of a fumble, mistackle, etc. Flipping it around when it is 4th and 13 and a long ball is thrown and bounces off defenders shoulder and into the arms of a player on your team and you win the game, then there are not fingers but self pats on back.

    I am not there yet as to how logistically within different departments sharing the SM efforts will be effective and ongoing.

    Thanks for reminding me on a monday that your team beat up on mine. I was almost over the pain …

  • http://doughaslam.com doughaslam

    Chris– this is a very important post- a very important idea. The solo stars need not to show off, but enable the rest of folks to do things well also. Social media specialists create social media teams. Well played sir.

  • jeffbenanto

    Shall we take this one step further?

    With social media, the entire company (read: team) needs to buy-in and be involved, on some level, with the process to reap all of the benefits. While you can probably make this analogy for most business processes/initiatives, I think this works even better when talking social media. Riffing off the football team comparison, the Owner represents your company's higher-ups that buy-in and support social media initiatives and provide the means to make sure that the company has the necessary resources to be successful.

    The team's Head Coach is the primary strategist, the big picture thinker, designing the overarching X's and O's of the campaign. Success or failure is his/her responsibility.

    At the next level is your Quarterback, the rock star who implements all of the plays in as fundamentally sound a way as possible. The Quarterback is also a strategist who has the ability to make important strategic and tactical calls in a flux (i.e. audible and broken plays).

    Supporting the QB are multiple teammates, including the offensive line who can best be described as a company’s army of tacticians that help support implementation and day-to-day to maintenance. The defensive side of the ball is involved with mitigating risk and aggressively averting unnecessary damage that impacts the final score (read: “bottom line“). The defensive line and line backing corps help your company to hold down the fort when things go wrong (I.e. your legal or HR department) by providing defensive statements and positions that avoid risky social behavior. Your defensive backfield consists of more senior executives that specialize in avoiding letting up the “the big play” by ensuring that the right team is in place in the first place.

    The rest of team, Wide Receivers, Running Backs, etc. can be considered your “skill players,” or the company rock stars that are responsible for the fundamental success of your organization. These players need not be intimately involved with social media operations, but can be called upon to offer their deep domain knowledge of subject areas for thought leadership purposes (blog posts, etc). Lump Kickers in here too…the truly skilled players that have that unique skillet that few others in the organization may have (think of the importance of a company’s IT department to all of these initiatives)…

    Clearly there are many ways to look at this analogy, but I thought I would offer my first take! We could probably flesh this out further, with all sorts of diagrams and analyses (and inclusion of Special Teams bit players, etc.), but I think I’ll leave that to Chris!

    Jeff
    @jbenanto

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  • http://twitter.com/5minutesformom 5minutesformom

    Exactly. Social media is about conversations and relationships — it begs to have many 'real' people continually having 'real' interactions.

    ~Susan

  • http://www.rxway.com/ Erectile Disorder

    Hey Chris,
    An inspiring post, has long thought about it. Today no need to be a genius to appreciate all the benefits of social media. Companies often ignore this banal, in the end they are not satisfied with the result.
    By the way, too, love football.

  • http://www.zoombits.de/kabel Kristanna

    This is a great article! Social media is by definition a collaborative experience externally, so there is no reason it should not be that way internally as well. The personality of a company is made up of its employees – its online presence should be the same case. I can’t wait to show this around my office…I still have some convincing to do about the value of running a joint-managed blog, you just helped out my case more than you know!

    christmas presents

  • edh

    Chris – Great post.

    Sports teams are a really good example. Even though every team member has a different role on the field, they all HAVE to buy in to the strategy that is set before the game. They have to trust the coach and eachother implicitly at every moment and although QB's (or equivilant in other sports) have the high profile position, and take the plaudits and abuse in equal measure…every player is just as vital if the team is to get the win.

    Love it!

  • http://jeffkorhan.com Jeff Korhan

    Actually, the analogy holds even more for small businesses, due to their limited resources, as I've been telling my small business clients for quite some time. Making social media a team sport is the only way they can fully manage it. They have to team up and partner with industry and community friends, peers, and supporters.

  • http://twitter.com/jeffwiedner Jeff Wiedner

    Staying w/ the analogy: You won't have a good quarterback unless you have a solid front line. :-) So wherever you have frontline personnel or people interacting with your customers.

  • http://twitter.com/Ale_2point0 Ale 2.0

    I think this point is a well made one but is certainly not news (at least in my experience). I'd like to know how you change that mind set. How do you create a healthy social media culture? How do you keep up a high level of content? If a large enough amount of staff are involved the net result will be a mean average of all the contributions. I'm not professing the have any answers but advocating teamwork and a large number of people efficiently working together across multiple and emerging platforms is a big challenge.

    Tom

  • fergdevins

    Great perspective Chris…I think it happens to depend on where a company or organization “are” with respect to what they are doing in social media. I try to boil it down to the simplest of actions when we define social media at Molson Coors – its a simple as the “conversation” between the corporate brand and or our brands of beer. Facing that opporutunity the conversations tend to get led and or coached by someone in my team “communications”, yet the infrastructure – Facebook, web sites, brand promotional programs etc are designed and built by CRM/Digitial. We also have created a SMIT (Social Media Influence Team) that is a combination of Communications – Digital/CRM – Brand – Media Agency – Consumer Insights and our outside creative teams building our on line tools. Ultimately this is our “team” and everyone needs to understand the play they need to make to keep advances the ball…sorry…the beer. Cheers @MolsonFerg

  • http://www.gennextmedia.com/chris-marentis Chris Marentis

    Interesting post as this morning I as thinking about the book “Crush It” and interview I listened in on with Gary Vaynerchick. He is an amazing guy with huge energy. I came away thinking that CEO's, and even senior staff, at my clients (both small and large organizations) will not be able to keep up with the social media marketing techniques Gary implores us to execute without it being a team effort. We find setting in place process and work-flow with tools that make it easy to monitor and assign social media marketing work is key to long term success for most organizations. In other words, make sure the team has a “game plan”.

  • ConxaRoda

    How true!
    I'm the one im my organizations (a museum) that has planned and implemented our social media presence, and I'm on my way to achieving some participation of museum staff. It's not easy and it takes time. When I first prsented the project there was no oppisition but no enthousiasm nor committment either. Now that we have been on the 2.0 road for 6 months, we have some spontaneous bloggers among staff and now people are starting to think of Facebook when developing some museum initiative. I'm confident implication will only grow, but needs to be nurtured (every day!)
    Conxa
    @innova2.

  • http://www.bethsmiller.com/ Beth Milleer

    Chris, As usual you hit the nail squarely on the head. Since social media is really a plaform for conversation, by its nature it can not be a solo sport.

    Whether businesses, or large companies choose to believe it or not, these conversations are popping up around their business. I found several separate Facebook pages for a major energy-related client that is resisting social media. The same company had at least 6 Twitterers tweeting about the company. And there were over 5,000 people that LinkedIn had connected to the corporate profile that was compiled by Business Week and not managed.

    It is all about the conversation, and that takes at least two, or many. And the playing field doesn't recognize large or small companies, just the honest, open conversation.
    Beth

  • krinhoh

    I think you're right on, Chris. And I think that one of the reasons is that we're still in the formative stages of creating the social media culture. The language we use, the intentions we have, the passion we simply ooze – it's still a bit foreign to the corporate masses. They simply don't understand what we're saying. We need to think about how we approach getting folks through this learning curve. How we get them to understand the language and the vision.

  • tessacarroll

    In order for a company's social media efforts to be successful, some sort of team work must be done. If you think about it, many companies have social media policies in place that dictate to others how they should participate in social media. If all employees, whether specifically assigned to social media or not, are disseminating different messages online then something ends up lost in the shuffle. In order to convey the right message, everyone has to be on the same page, working together.

    Tessa Carroll
    http://www.blogs.vbpoutsourcing.com

  • http://poncier.org/blog Anthony Poncier

    I agree with you, I've made the same thinking with rugby (http://poncier.org/blog/?p=771), but unfortunatly it's in French

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  • http://www.CampbellDuke.com Elizabeth Campbell Duke

    We need to move away from the competitive sports model. I realize that we swim in a cultural-sea of competition – but that's the problem. Companies aren't teams – especially the large ones with lots of workers who are there for a paycheque. Smaller companies can be teams in the truest sense – when they are a group of like-minded people who have come together to throw their different skills into the mix so they can benefit by the synergy.

    When competition exists among members of the team, as on a sports team where each player lives with the fear of being axed in the event of a mistake, we don't have a team…. because there's someone in the wings praying for you to screw up so they can take your place.

    A real team is structured so that it succeeds when everyone succeeds, so that we truly assist each other in reaching the goal.

    Sadly, the business mind-set is still in the competitive model. There is a bigger picture, where people can make their livings doing what turns their cranks without getting unnecessarily cut-throat.

    As I watch the hype about what is now appropriately called “Black Friday”, I know that we haven't learned anything in the last year about where the competitive model has landed us.

    Thanks for this post, Chris. There's a HUGE discussion about paradigm shifting here.

  • http://twitter.com/communitygirl Angela Connor

    I've been crunching data on a survey about community management I plan to release at the beginning of the year and it is FILLED with responses from community managers who feel very much alone. I can relate 100%. I am hoping that the results will be eye opening for companies that continue to put people in these roles with little to no support and expect them to make magic without burning out in the process.

  • http://humanvoice.wordpress.com tomob

    Hi Chris:

    While there may be solo players in the consulting community – there are no successful solo players in the organizations effectively leveraging SM to achieve business results.

    Frank E has a team, Jeffrey H has a team, Scott M has a team. This cannot be successfully done alone.

    TO'B

  • lisahorner

    Agreed. And this is really an art. In larger orgs, typically the more cross-functional the idea/project/initiative, the tougher it is to get anything done – well. But with respect to social media, I think companies really have to galvanize around their goals – the 'whys' not the 'whats'. Doing this will make the required team & the approach self-evident.

  • jgraziani

    DJ, you're right. Fortunately, I work for a company that has a forward-thinking executive team. Several people in different depts are doing different things with social media. While mainly independent, there is no one person doing everything. There's plenty of work to go around! The result is we all have to depend on each other some of the time. For instance, I handle Twitter and am on the fringe of our Facebook/MySpace/YouTube endeavors, but have nothing to do with the blog. If I want the blog to do something for me I have to go talk to the editor. And that's no problem, because I try to tweet about the blog frequently, and at some point the blog is going to want Facebook to promote something for them. It all works.

    I think you can teach your current employees who are social minded to engage in social media for the company, but you also want strategic thinkers (as with any other communications endeavor) who will be looking for the next big thing, the proper channels to reach your audience or a new audience. If you have to go outside to find that person, then you do.

    The real problem in this economy, is finding the resources to build and develop a social media team. Many companies are working with what they have. Due to budget issues it's come down to making a decision about which projects to pursue and what to set on the back burner. To stick with the football analogy, maybe it's the difference between kicking the extra point (safe) or going for two (risk). Each company has to determine how much risk it can take right now, but maybe when the economy gets better more companies will be creating larger teams, faster.

  • http://twitter.com/pnstlion Gabe Young

    Great point, Chris. The problem with many companies is that they don't have the infrastructure to support a team on social media. Enterprises may be able to to implement such an approach, which makes total sense. Most medium to small sized companies have trouble figuring out who should own the role let alone divvy up the responsibilities.

  • http://www.retirepreneur.com Donna Kastner/Retirepreneur

    Okay, so you have QB, RB, WR, kickers, etc… but it strikes me that for the SM team dynamic to truly transfer to the corporate playing field, everyone must be in lock-step on strategy, objectives, and individual plays. I suspect many companies still struggle with getting their players to that level. They fear too many fumbles, too many losses, and next thing you know, they're at the bottom of their division.

    So perhaps the preliminary step is to introduce SM as an internal development & collaboration tool – to watch, affirm, and coach players to perfect their game… as practice scrimmages improve and you're confident in your first string team, THEN you head to the stadium, turn on the lights, bring in the ESPN film crew, and let the real game (with clients, partners, etc) begin. [PS: you keep doing the internal SM piece to develop bench strength - so you have players ready to replace IR] – What do you think?

  • Paul DeLuca

    I'm not so sure this about implementing a team approach as it is defining it. A company that acts like a team already will naturally take on the best aspects of team behavior in everything they do. Even if they only have one person in charge of social media, they're using a team approach without knowing it. That single person isn't operating in a vacuum. They need input from multiple departments in order to effectively use social media tools to engage their community. That input may come ad hoc or through serendipity or through an organized approach. Either way, it's still team input.

    I do agree that companies need to have more people engaged in social media communication. Every department is critical to the company's success and every department has clients and vendors, whether they be internal or external. People in those departments are already communicating (and by communicating I mean listening as well as talking) with those clients and vendors. Using social media tools simply extends the community beyond its existing communication sphere. Peter Drucker's view of the only two functions that every company performs (marketing and innovation) is dead-on right. Everything and everyone markets in a company already; from the way you answer the phone, to the way you pack and ship a product, it's all marketing. Formalizing it to gain leverage and synergy–things that sound buzz-wordy, but are actually what all good teams do–may be prudent if the company culture is right. If not, it won't matter.

  • http://www.CampbellDuke.com/ Elizabeth Campbell Duke

    I am always surprised when companies go to the effort of having analysis done, and then fail to listen to the results. Had they listened to their “team members” in the first place, they wouldn't have needed to call in a consultant.

    Angela… I hope the tides are turning, and that you will be listened to. Perhaps there is hope. I'm pulling for you!

  • jgraziani

    Amber, here's one way to look at it: You want someone who is naturally social — the person who goes to a party and makes new friends, not the one who sits back and only watches. Because you want someone who is not afraid to engage others.

    Find a handful of these people in the company then have them sit down with the customer service and public relations teams (yikes! yes I said it, PR). Customer service people have a great attitude and excel at finding solutions. PR people are the crafters of the company message, and while you don't want to sound corporate in social media, you do want to get your message across. So the PR folks will tell you what's important to say or not say, then the social person can convey the idea in their own terms. Make sense?

    I know a small company may not have all these people on staff, but if you can hire consultants occasionally to help that might be a good idea. Just a thought.

  • metzgerbusiness

    Chris, I think that not only does this analogy apply for small businessess but it holds for small and medium sized bloggers as well. I just came here from reading Josh Hanagarne's World Strongest Librarian blog and Fatchomper. They have both acted as a team by sharing blog posts with eachother and helping to build eachother's brands. I can't remember where I found Josh origionally was it here? But he had done a guest blog on another site and I followed through to find out more. Oh, I remember now it was at Copyblogger The point is by sharing and helping eachother to succeed we act as a team and we raise the level for everyone. I've recently been writting two blog series that are basically the same thing Web Marketing for small local business, and Neighborhood – these blog series focus on small business and building community. They require that you act as a team. The Neighborhood barbershop is the perfect example of how businesses need to support eachother online. It's really what you and Julien have said in trust agents help your customers and help your partners and you will benefit somehow somewhere. I guess what i'm saying somewhat more passionatly than I thought is: Don't discount the team therory for Small Business. It's more important now than ever.

  • http://www.facebook.com/cbwhittemore Christine B. Whittemore

    Chris, you highlight the opportunity that so many companies face by having everyone realize that social media marketing is part of each's job. How else to truly bring value to our customers.

    Although I find the team sport analogy relevant, I wish there were a more organic one. Take how Zappos embodies the spirit of customer service – at the heart of social media – that's more than team sport. That's DNA guiding each move so each operates in concert with the other, improvising while keeping to the musical theme…

    Wonderful discussion.

  • http://www.theskooloflife.com/ Srinivas Rao

    Chris,

    This is really interesting. I recently wrote a guest post for somebody called “blogging is a team sport” about how multi-author blogs are going to be the future of blogging and collaboration will be the future of social media. Teamwork increases production capacity significantly and I think that's going to be a huge thing for the future of social media.

  • http://www.Spidvid.com Jeremy Campbell

    Teaming up and collaborating is the future for business. “Social media huddle” I love it!

  • Realtormike

    A self employed Realtor working as an agent for a Brokerage within a regon of the country. The team concept is good and will be needed in our industry to encourage the public to listen.
    Thank you

  • fordkanzler

    Chris,
    Your post on social media execution being an organizational team sport leads my thinking to the next step which is closely integrating (dare one use the buzzword synergy?) both social and traditional media campaigns for maximum strategic effect. Traditional media can trigger social media results as well as visa versa. We've seen some of that within the political and celeb promotional sectors. I bet there's lots to share and learn about how its been or being well done in B2C or B2B as well.
    Thoughts?
    Ford

  • http://www.tweetfunnel.com/ Nathalee Ghafouri

    I 100% agree that social media needs to be a team effort. For example, a Twitter stream is so much more interesting and engaging when a whole host of people are contributing content. It doesn't matter if it's a restaurant or large B2B company, a variety of voices and expertise makes Twitter more interesting. In fact, I wrote a blog post on this a while back “3 Reasons to have Multiple People Tweet for Your Brand” http://www.tweetfunnel.com/blog/three-reasons-m…. And in terms of scalability, there are a host of tools out there to make team tweeting easy.

  • http://www.baldrige.nist.gov/ Zara Brunner

    Great post and completely agree. The more people involved, the more engagement there will be and the conversation will be much richer. It's not “solo” media it's “social” and that requires people–plural.

    It may help to have a few people come up with a plan for internal review and input. And then, based on that feedback, refine the strategy, process, etc. and get everyone on board to execute.

  • http://www.baldrige.nist.gov/ Zara Brunner

    Great post and completely agree. The more people involved, the more engagement there will be and the conversation will be much richer. It's not “solo” media it's “social” and that requires people–plural.

    It may help to have a few people come up with a plan for internal review and input. And then, based on that feedback, refine the strategy, process, etc. and get everyone on board to execute.

  • http://www.vestorlogic.com Tim Miner

    I couldn't agree more. I work primarily with small to mid-size companies and it is always a challenge to convey just how important it is to have more “players” on the social media field. It resonates with me that having more points of view from within an organization is important. Maybe even imperative. The irony to me is that in order to get my prospects to convert to clients I have to muster the support of multiple people from the within the organization to get them on board as a client but their efforts are almost always seen as the “job” of a single person. Doesn't make sense to me. Everyone wants to be part of the decision to begin utilizing social media but then everyone disappears once the real work begins.

  • zackhanebrink

    I'm not sure that the “team” approach would work as a cookie cutter model to every company. For some, yes, for others no. It boils down to what networks the company wants to be involved in, what types of social media, what their goals and expectations are with social media and the individuals at the company.

    I think that you can and will find people in almost every company that “get it,” but management allowing those people to have that kind of “power” can be challenging.

    Having multiple authors on a blog makes sense, different administrators for a FB page yes, Twitter I would say is case by case as well as other social networks like digg, SU etc. Although, with social media going more mainstream for business, I think the team approach will be more necessary in the near future.

    Great analogy with the sports.

  • http://twitter.com/matthixson Matt Hixson

    I would say that many people that are champions of social media within a company are like a college coach. They are recruiting players. I don't disagree with the ideas in the post but in my experience the players on the field think it is valuable but they aren't ready to make it part of their everyday until they see the proven value. I also think that most people are scared of what they don't know and many people don't know where to start.

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