I spoke at a panel dinner last night at the Seattle Direct Marketing Associations Social Media networking dinner and had a good time. The panel was 3 agency people and me – the brand. One of the questions that got discussed was where does social media fit into an org chart. Who’s responsibility is it? PR, marketing, customer support? I thought I’d pass along my answer because it seemed to resonate. The short answer is it depends…. on what? On what your goal is. Each of these departments focus on different business objectives and solve for different use cases. PR is about exposure, how many publications picked up the story and what was the reach of those publications. It’s about exposure through influential's. PR is interested in a 1:few scenario where the outreach is targeted to key influential's that will then trickle down their message to the masses. If this is your teams strategy then it makes sense to put social media engagement in your PR plan. Xbox and Zune drive their social media activities from their PR teams.

Customer support is about solving customer problems. The metrics are based on solve rate, lowering support costs and customer satisfaction. If your business needs are driving by customer sat numbers and decreased support costs then build a social media engagement program in your customer service department. Dell and Comcast do this.

The third option is the marketing team. This is where I sit. When I started the community/social media plan it was driven by a few precise business goals, increase brand favorability and likelihood to refer and lower customer churn for Windows Live. I knew if I exposed Hotmail users to what can be done on Messenger I had a better shot at increasing customer attach rate to our services, thereby lowering customer churn. My business objectives are rooted in marketing performance indicators so it makes sense I’m running this program from the marketing team.

It goes back to being articulate and concise about what the goals are for your company’s social media program. Your objectives will tell you where it should live.