Transitioning Between Social Media People
It is a sad day when someone has to be let go because of either budget cuts or just being fired. But what do you do when that person was in charge of all of your social media? This can be a problem that many companies run into if they intend to go through employees a lot. But there are some things from an employer standpoint that can be done in advance to lesson the rough transition that could happen from going from old social media manager to new social media manager.
First make sure that when all the social media profiles are setup that it is done in an email address that is not tied to one direct person that is doing the social media management. For example, Joe is the guy handling all of the social media make sure Joe makes an email address that is going to be used solely for the tasks of social media.
You want to make sure Joe backs everything with all of the accounts to a company server. Meaning the usernames and passwords and any questions for lost passwords or username (what is the name of your dog, type thing). Making sure you have a backup of this data is vital to making sure they don’t leave with something they can hang over your head. You the employer needs to be in total control at all times.
Another note here before you do decide to make the transition. If you plan on letting someone go and you know that for example Friday is going to be that day, someone from your team that is staying should at end of day Thursday go in and change all the passwords to the accounts. The reason is you don’t want the freshly fired or let go person to use your social media profiles to talk bad about your company. Yes, of course you could take legal action if this was ever done, but the damage will be done before that and there is no going back once it is online. So make sure you handle this prior to letting the person go.
The second thing you will want to do is try to make sure the profiles on twitter are under people that have been at the company for years and aren’t going anywhere – like the president or vice president. Have the person post from those names. You don’t want Joe@yourcompany.com to be the face of the company. Because people will build relationships with those people in twitter and if that person is gone then it is hard to rebuild that personal branding style.
Third make sure that there is a persona that the company agrees with doing your social media. You will want the transition to be fluid and if the new person is a totally different personality people will see through this and notice.
Fourth make sure when the person is being let go that someone else is commissioned to take over those tasks ASAP. You don’t want your social media presence to be left idle. You have to keep the conversation going regardless. Even if it is a temporary person handling it. It needs to keep with the same posting schedule and consistency that it has had the whole entire time. Don’t miss a beat.
I hope that this helps in your transitions if you are considering it, also last tip make sure that you have Google alerts setup to monitor if that person that has been let go is not bad mouthing you online. Make an alert for your company name if you don’t have one already and monitor for the next month on a daily basis. After a month or so people tend to lose their anger if there was any and will move on. But right afterwards they will tend to try to vent their frustrations online if that is possible.
