Andy’s Answers: How to grow your social media team without hiring new people

By Andy Sernovitz on December 31, 2009 | 4 Comments

When budgets are tight and resources are stretched thin, it can be hard to cover all the places you want to be in social media. But even if adding staff isn’t an option, there are other ways you can add talent without adding to the budget.

Where to look:

  • Support staff. Secretaries, administrative assistants, and even your smart interns can be excellent resources to help you in your social media engagement. While you may reserve outreach for those that are trained in doing so, these colleagues can help you monitor and keep track of important conversations.
  • Customer service. The folks who answer your phones and respond to customers all day are generally excellent at doing it online, too. A growing trend in corporate social media is to shift a few talented customer service reps from the call centers to focus on online support and engagement.
  • Fan community leaders. Communities are often a core component to a social media program, and they can also demand a lot of resources. But a few savvy marketers are finding ways to shift community ownership and management to the community members themselves. Not only does it relieve stress on internal resources, but the fans love it, too.

Related posts:

  1. Andy’s Answers: What to look for when hiring for your social media team
  2. Andy’s Answers: 3 people you should be earning love from every day
  3. Andy’s Answers: 3 ways a small business can use Twitter

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  • Posted by Tweets that mention SmartBlog On Social Media » Andy’s Answers: How to grow your social media team without hiring new people -- Topsy.com on December 31st, 2009 at 6:35 am

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by SmartBrief on SocMed and Jentan Bernardus, Mike Zavarello. Mike Zavarello said: RT @SBoSM: How to grow your social media team without hiring new people from @sernovitz http://ow.ly/Rlf3 [...]

  • Posted by uberVU - social comments on December 31st, 2009 at 6:37 am

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by sbosm: How to grow your social media team without hiring new people from @sernovitz http://ow.ly/Rlf3...

  • Posted by Eric Brown on January 2nd, 2010 at 7:23 am

    Andy, Good Morning
    Reaching out to your core customers, which you define as Community Leaders in your article has worked really well for us. In no way would we have been able to extend our reach without the Urbane Evangelists,

    The secondary piece of that to is the learning that comes from have such a direct conduit with your customer,They will help you solve every problem, as long as you are willing to listen, and have thick enough skin, as sometimes the brutal truth can be a challenge to absorb

  • Posted by How to expand your social-media team « FCEdge Powerful Marketing Communications on January 15th, 2010 at 2:00 pm

    [...] How to expand your social-media team It’s easy to grow your social-media team, even if you don’t have the cash to make hires, writes Andy Sernovitz. By reaching out to support staff, customer-service workers and even fans, you should be able to find the talent you need. “While you may reserve outreach for those that are trained in doing so, these colleagues can help you monitor and keep track of important conversations,” Sernovitz adds.  SmartBrief/SmartBlog on Social Media [...]

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