Would you trust your brand with an intern? If your answer to this question is “no,” then you shouldn’t be willing to trust them with your company’s social media.
In today’s modern commercial world, social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are one of the primary ways to showcase your brand online. Managing a company’s presence on those sites is a big responsibility and not something to be taken lightly.
Still, a company or organization might be tempted to hand over the Twitter account to an intern for variety of reasons, whether they think that someone of the younger generation of more tech savvy or even more experienced with all the relatively new forms, such as Instagram and Pinterest. But, as Hollis Thomases points out on Inc.com, technical savvy isn’t the same thing as social-media savvy. In addition to that, Thomases breaks down 10 more good reasons not to leave a 23-year-old in charge of your social media. Things like maturity and communication skills are vital, and probably best left to a professional rather than an intern.
Even with the importance of social media being paramount, Twitter mishaps have still become common place, much to the chagrin of public relations professionals.
Just this past week, for example, an NFL team found itself having to apologize for a social media blunder. It just might have happened because they put someone in charge of their official Twitter account that they shouldn’t have. Travis Wright, a social media manager himself, tweeted a complaint toward the Kansas City Chiefs’ ownership. The response from the official Twitter account of the team, @kcchiefs, was less than ideal. The following was sent as a direct message to Wright over Twitter:
As it turns out, direct messages aren’t always private. Wright shared this on Reddit.com, a social news aggregating site, and it went viral. Many Chiefs fans weren’t happy with how the team’s Twitter account was being handled. There was an apology sent through the same official account, but it wasn’t much better.
“I apologize to the fans for my response to a tweet sent to me earlier,” @kcchiefs tweeted. “No excuse for my actions. I am truly sorry and it won’t happen again.”
Words like “my” and “me” show a clear misunderstanding of how a company’s social media should be utilized. The whole situation is a testament to how right Thomases really is.
12:41 AM - 9-17-2012
I agree with your post — a company should definitely think about who is managing its social media, and shouldn’t just hand it over to anyone. However, the author of the Inc. Magazine article focuses more on age, rather than qualification, which upsets me, because there are many young professionals who are qualified to manage social media. Maybe, like you, she should have used the term “intern” instead of 23-year-old in her writing. It would have been a more effective argument. Also, I enjoyed the Chiefs example you used to illustrate your point. It really shows how much social media has become an important topic of discussion.
7:54 PM - 9-18-2012
I agree that an intern should not be put in charge of a company, especially when social media is being so widely used to showcase its brand. Just because an intern has experience in using social media does not mean they have experience using it for public relations. I also like the example of the chiefs showing bad pr can happen to anyone and proving that once something is sent it can’t be taken back. Making it very vital that people are conscious about what they tweet or post.
9:46 PM - 9-18-2012
I like how you point out that having an intern manage your social media is similar to having an intern manage your brand. This makes it clearer what needs to be considered in hiring someone to work on social media. It also emphasizes how much thought needs to go into a company’s social media presence, which often seems to be lower on a list of many company’s priorities. I think that is the point Thomases needed to emphasize, not that handing it to an intern or recent college graduate is wrong but that not seriously considering how to manage it is wrong.
Also with your Twitter example I like that you point out that beyond the obvious rude tone, the apology was even done poorly using terms like “me” and “my” instead of “we” and “us” or even “it” to represent the company. This shows that what seems like tiny details can really affect your brand and company’s message, especially when you only have 140 characters for your message on Twitter for example.