One of my favorite analysts at Forrester Research – Sean Corcoran – blogs that companies should not hire a Social Media Agency of Record.

The premise of his argument is that social media is not a vertical channel – that social media is “a horizontal set of technologies that enable sharing across individuals and brands.” As he deftly describes, social media “can and should be incorporated across virtually all marketing activities.”

I completely agree with his assessment and thesis. However, I would go farther and say that social media should be integrated across more business functions than just marketing.

Social media is critical for customer service. Social media is fundamental for research and development. Social media is a powerful HR platform.

While most companies have understandably first ventured into social media focused on marketing, to think that social media should be “owned” by marketing departments, and their agencies, is simply underestimating and misunderstanding the fundamentals of this technology.

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• Sean Corcoran says:

  October 5, 2010 at 11:36 am

  Hi Jose,

  I couldn’t agree more. In fact, we have done a great deal of research on the use of social media in other parts of the organization including IT, HR,etc. We actually have a great deal of data on how IT is currently (and slowly) adopting internal collaboration tools. We’re also doing some researh on what we call “social maturity” – the changes an organizaiton must make to prepare for a world of empowered customers and employees. So all in all, we definitely agree it should be more than just marketing. I just happen to write my blog to marketers and had seen to many of them picking one agency to manage all of the brand or company’s social media.