There has been and continues to be significant discussion about the ownership of social media strategies and activities within an organization. As a PR professional with some social media experience, let me add my perspective to the debate.

I believe social media should be owned at a strategic level by the top corporate communications or public relations officer or manager in any organization. Here’s my rationale to support this statement:

1. Corporate communications and PR own the organization’s external communications and oftentimes the overarching positioning. This puts them in an ideal position for understanding how the company brand should behave on social media platforms. With this insight, the corporate communications / PR department is well equipped to develop and deploy the right social media strategies and tactics.

2. Social media is about engaging and developing direct one-to-one relationships with individuals. Typically, the PR and communication teams in an organization are already doing this with many audiences (e.g. journalists, analysts, investors and other influencers). Given this, the communication team already has many of the skills and expertise required to build relationships via Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms.

3. Corporate communication / PR needs to have a direct handle on how the company is perceived. Social media provides immediate access to this information. Thoughtful and well-managed engagement on social media platforms can provide tremendous positive PR for a company.

4. Corporate communications and PR often own content that is ideal for sharing on social networks. For instance, these departments will have news they can break to their online communities, they’ll know about informative articles they can link to, or they’ll be involved in the creation of video.

Of course, ownership does not mean that corporate communications has to do it all. It may make sense for corporate communications or PR to involve other groups within the organization (such as HR, legal, customer service or product marketing) in the development of the social media strategy or even in the execution of the strategy.

But the ultimate responsibility and accountability for social media needs to rest with the communications department. After all, good governance requires clear, decisive and insightful ownership as well as a thorough understanding of each department’s roles and responsibilities. Corporate communications and/or PR, if they’ve done their homework, should already be poised and well-versed to handle these duties in the social media realm.

For additional insight on social media, please see the following links to past articles written by the team at Communiqué PR.

• How Starbucks Leverages Social Media

• My Four Favorite Twitter Tools

• The New Rules of Media Relations