Our Guide to Enterprise Social Media Strategy

When you hear enterprise social media, what comes to mind?

Big. Complex. Multinational. Diversified. Regulated?

There isn’t a universally accepted threshold that determines when a business is technically considered an “enterprise” organization, but we can call enterprise social media marketing by what it actually is: Different.

One key distinction from smaller brand social media marketing is program scale and scope. Enterprise social media often involves managing more social media accounts, diverse content requirements, and coordinating strategies across a larger number of departments.

Love it or hate it, the word “stakeholder” will come up a whole lot more.

Luckily – as a B2B social media agency with experience inside enterprise brands like Atlassian, Schneider Electric, and Uber — it’s one of our favorite subject matters.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the key factors to consider when building and managing a social media strategy for an enterprise-scale brand.

From defining your goals to selecting the right platforms to measure your results, we’ll give you the tools and insights you need to succeed.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Community management and social listening

Managing your social media community and listening to what your audience has to say is what separates the good from the great in social media marketing – and this extends to the enterprise realm as well.

Here are some considerations to keep in mind for your enterprise social media management program.

Distinguish customer care from audience engagement

Listening and response work serves different purposes and involves different roles.

Set up your team for success by developing workflows for customer support scenarios that integrate with existing solutions and tag in the right people quickly.

This leaves the remaining engagement to be handled by community managers, who might strike a different tone.

Monitor your social media channels for opportunities

Monitor your social media channels regularly for both reactive and proactive engagement opportunities. With reactive, your goal is to monitor brand mentions to identify net promoters, or customer complaints or concerns.

Respond to these concerns promptly and effectively to show your customers that you care about their needs and are committed to providing excellent customer service.

Encourage engagement

You can ask questions, solicit feedback, and respond to comments.

This can help you build a strong, engaged social media community that supports your enterprise’s social media goals.

The key to this is not to ask away, but to do it with purpose, and following the pulse of your community.

Use social media listening tools

You can listen natively or use powerful social listening tools to monitor social media conversations about your brand and industry.

This can help you stay current on trends and identify opportunities to engage with your target audience.

Measure your community engagement

Use social media analytics tools to measure your community engagement with reactions, comments, and shares.

The goal is simple – to understand how your social media community is engaging with your content and identify growth opportunities.

The structure of an enterprise social media marketing team

Enterprise social media marketing teams are organized to operate at a larger scale. But how should that team look?

Here are three common orientations for the social media team inside of a large company.

Centralized team model

A centralized social media team supports the whole enterprise with strategy and execution.

When another team needs social media campaign support, the request filters through this internal agency.

As the center of excellence for the entire organization, they are responsible for creating the tools and rules, such as templates, strategy decks, and guidance that other departments can use.

They also manage the global social media channels and direct the content strategy.

Commonly, they rely on a network of agencies and content producers to support specific campaigns and specialized initiatives.

Decentralized team model

In a decentralized social media marketing structure, a social media team or manager supports each department or business unit directly.

They work closely with the department or business unit to develop and implement social media strategies that align with their specific goals and objectives.

In this model, you trade off brand consistency for speed of execution.

Hybrid team model

A hybrid model combines two or more different models or approaches — like employing a centralized team for global brand strategy and policies, and country teams for localized social media management.

Hybrid could also represent using both an in-house social media team with an external social media agency for execution.

In that instance, the in-house team could handle day-to-day social media management tasks, like posting content and engaging with followers, while the agency could provide strategic guidance, create social media campaigns, or offer expertise in areas like social media advertising or influencer marketing.

Functional roles and responsibilities within the enterprise social media team

Let’s get to the people part. When building your enterprise social media marketing team in any model, it’s important to define the functional roles and responsibilities of each team member.

Here are the five common functional roles within an enterprise social media team:

Strategy: Responsible for developing and implementing your strategy. This includes defining social media goals, identifying target audiences, selecting social media channels, developing content strategies, and measuring the effectiveness of social media efforts.
Community management: Responsible for managing your social community. This includes monitoring social media channels for customer concerns, responding to comments and questions, and engaging with social media followers to build strong relationships.
Content production: Responsible for creating social media content that supports the strategy. This includes developing content calendars, creating content that resonates with target audiences, and collaborating with designers, videographers, creators, and camera talent to produce engaging social media content.
Paid advertising: Responsible for developing and executing social media advertising campaigns. This includes identifying target audiences, selecting social media channels, developing ad creatives, and measuring the effectiveness of social media advertising efforts.
Measurement and analysis: Responsible for measuring and analyzing the effectiveness of your social media efforts. This includes tracking social media metrics, identifying areas for improvement, and developing reports that communicate social media performance to key stakeholders.

In-house or agency: which choice is best for enterprise social media marketing?

Finding the right balance between internal and external resources is a challenge where previous experiences and preconceptions play a huge (and not always justified) role.

While both options offer advantages, there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to managing social media for your brand.

Managing all five social media roles is a tall order for a single social media manager without tactical support.

In an ideal scenario, your agency shouldn’t work in isolation either. The best approach is to leverage an external resource’s flexibility and the internal team’s connectivity with customers and products.

This means the agency should collaborate with the in-house social media manager to provide audience research, content strategy frameworks, process improvements, and timely opportunities.

Alternatively, if the in-house team is comfortable with the strategy, the agency should be responsible for creating batches of scheduled content and providing paid support for growth goals.

The choice doesn’t have to be one or the other – it’s all about playing to strengths and giving credit where it’s due.

By collaborating with an external agency, your in-house team can tap into their expertise while retaining control over the overall social media strategy.

Here are some of the responsibilities that both in-house and agency teams can handle:

Agency

Content creation: An agency can handle content creation for your enterprise’s social media channels, including developing content calendars, writing copy, and creating visual content like images, videos, and infographics.
Community engagement: Agencies can also be responsible for engaging with their social media audience, responding to comments and questions, and building relationships with their followers.
Creatives and strategy: An agency can provide a fresh perspective and creative ideas for your social media strategy, helping you to stay ahead of the curve and stand out from the competition.
Performance monitoring: An agency can use social media management tools to track social media metrics and identify areas for improvement.

Brand

Content and creative review/approval: The in-house social media team can review and approve the agency’s content and creative assets, ensuring that they align with your brand’s tone and voice.
Strategy: The in-house team should oversee the social media strategy, ensuring that it aligns with the broader business goals and objectives.
Performance monitoring: The in-house team can monitor social media performance, identify areas for improvement, and make strategic decisions based on the insights gained from social media analytics.
Evaluation: The in-house team can conduct regular evaluations of the social media strategy and adjust it as needed to ensure that it continues to support the overall business goals.
Integrations: The in-house team is always the best choice when it comes to gluing internal tools together for better, more consistent data flows. Also, there’s less risk of a security breach by developing integrations internally.

Best practices for driving performance in enterprise social media marketing

In summary, here’s the breakdown of what it takes to drive performance with your social media strategy.

Develop a social media guide

It’s the foundation: Create a guide outlining your brand’s tone, voice, and style.

This will help ensure that all social media content is consistent and on-brand.

Also, it doesn’t have to be long, but it should give every person involved a clear understanding of the goals and what is (and isn’t) appropriate to post.

Pro tip: If the social media guide is in place, start by looking at it with fresh eyes, and update it to match the current state of things.

Create a knowledge-sharing culture

Encourage collaboration and learning by establishing a communication channel for all your organization’s social media managers.

Keep in mind that many of them may not be full-time social media professionals, but their unique perspectives and experiences can offer valuable insights across the different departments in your company.

To promote more sharing and learning, set up a regular meeting cadence, use Slack or Microsoft Teams chats, and create an internal newsletter for updates.

This will strengthen your social media strategy and drive better results across the enterprise.

Find your (internal) influencers

Tap into the expertise of your very own team members—look for individuals within your organization who can contribute valuable content or even participate in thought leadership initiatives.

These internal influencers can come from any department or level, and they bring their unique expertise and insights to your social media efforts.

Engage them in casual conversations, ask about their experiences, and encourage them to share their ideas.

By involving these key players, you’re not only making your content more authentic and relatable but also fostering a collaborative and creative atmosphere within the company.

Limit barriers that may delay content approval

Have a structured content guideline that sets clear expectations for the type of content that can be published on social media and a clear workflow for content creation, review, and approval.

This can help avoid delays in content approval and ensure that all content is aligned with your brand’s values.

In addition, make the most of automated and semi-automated workflows. Use digital forms that direct answers to stakeholders, create automatic notifications, and leverage all the tools in your arsenal to avoid bottlenecks and delays.

Amplify high-performing posts

Identify the posts that perform the best and amplify them by promoting them with paid advertising. This can help increase reach and engagement with your target audience.

Create a quarterly or monthly planning spreadsheet for performance monitoring

Develop a spreadsheet that tracks key social media metrics on a monthly or quarterly basis. This can help you identify trends and make strategic decisions based on the insights gained from social media analytics.

Key questions to ask before implementing changes

While we are trying to cover everything in this article, chances are that we might be missing a detail or two.

This is where questions come into play. Ask yourself the following questions to complete the analysis of the situation.

What social media maturity level has your enterprise reached, realistically?
How different does the ideal situation look from the current state of things?
What would it take in terms of strategy, team, tools, and budget to reach your goals?

Sure, you’ll likely start by addressing and updating the foundational aspects of your social media strategy, but from there on out, a lot of moving parts will start popping up.

Looking for more social media inspiration?

Learn more about building your social media strategy and using some of the latest tools of the trade with the following resources:

Also, if you’re looking for some actual, real-world inspiration, consider following the accounts below:

Atlassian on LinkedIn and X.
HubSpot on TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
John Deere on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Ready to start leveraging the power of enterprise social media marketing for your B2B brand?

Then contact us today, and let us help you level up your efforts!