How many times have you heard…if you want to engage via social media, you should assign the youngest member of your team? Are social media channels really the domain of recent graduates? Yes, each successive generation is inherently more digitally literate, and younger members of a marketing team are usually more familiar with social networking tools, but do you really want to hand over responsibility for your brand image and reputation to junior marketers?

There may, of course, be good reasons for doing so. Perhaps those junior marketers have been trained as brand ambassadors, or your target market may be Generation Y (or Z). However, if yours is like most organizations, you have a diverse marketing team with the requisite skills to engage with customers across multiple demographics. Those experienced marketers – who know your brand, understand your messaging and have deep insights into customer requirements – are exactly the right people to engage with individuals using social media. In fact, they are much more likely to become active, accepted and respected members of the social media communities important to your brand.

So, how do you convert an “old” traditional marketer into a “new” engagement manager? First, define a solid strategy to listen to, learn from and understand your customers before you speak to them. Second, ensure your marketing people apply this strategy across all touch points – not only for brand consistency, but for relevant interactions which are beneficial both to your business and your customers. Third, equip your marketing people with the right tools to help them discover influential communities and determine the appropriate role for your brand within each network. And finally, empower them to proactively and reactively engage on behalf of your brand.

You don’t need new marketers – you just need to teach them the new rules of engagement.

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