9 ways to manage a top social media team

Social media is rife with spontaneous combustion; conversations boil up everywhere, and crises erupt when least expected.

Social media shops in businesses and other organizations can’t afford to operate in a careless manner. To be effective, they require serious management efforts and a set of concrete objectives.

A recent post at Poynter.org offered suggestions for running social media teams in news organizations, with a focus on details like scheduling shifts and keeping your group small (not a problem for beleaguered, budget-strapped teams at many companies).

So we asked corporate social media experts for their tips on managing a social media team. Here’s a sampling of their suggestions:

1. Set your business objectives.

It’s well and good to plan employee work shifts and gin up the Google+ site. But first things first, says Christopher Barger, senior vice president of global programs at Voce Connect.

Set and prioritize your objectives, whether they entail revenue generation, message penetration, impact on brand perception, or something else, he says.