Where should IT and Enterprise Architecture fit within social media management?

Having worked closely with Enterprise Architects and IT Professionals over the past few years im now being asked where does IT fit within the emerging discipline of Social Media ?
Im meeting with clients where their organizations are looking to deploy social media tools and strategies. Interestingly in all of the meetings to date there hasn’t been a single person from the IT or the Enterprise Architecture function involved!

Based on my great respect for the Enterprise Architect and IT discipline it’s quite amazing to see that technology and platform discussions are taking place without someone from an IT discipline being present.
It seems that business leaders and department managers see no need to involve IT or EA functions as the deployments are cloud based and simple.


From a Marketing and business perspective many of the technologies can be deployed by none IT business managers as the barrier to social media deployment is quite low. Now anyone can launch a blog or landing page within minutes without having any type of technical background. Anyone can do it, at any time, in a cost effective and time effective way without dealing with the complexities of IT.

However the tools and systems being introduced have their own social media backends often with their own data, information and processes. This can lead to duplication of content, lack of standardization, a big technology mess and data silos within organizations.

So, what’s the best solution?
I believe its now time for the EA Business Architects to step forward and get involved. There needs to be a strategy in place on how Social Media is implemented and how it fits into the overall business architecture.

What do you think ?
Is it now time for the Business Architects to step forward and get involved?

TactixSocialMedia is an internet marketing company. The company specializes in Social Media services and software that help companies increase their brand recognition by expanding their presence on the web - www.tactixsocialmedia.com

Social Media revolution

Social media in the next 2 years!

I have been debating with a number of clients where Social Media is going over the next 2 years-

Self/personal Social Media use
People doing social media from a hobby or personal perspective will continue growing. People spending time on Social media because it will make them money will continue to use evangelise and invest in projects. There are a lot of people who are using social media for fun and this will continue.

Small Business Social Media use
The biggest growth potential for social media is for small businesses. There will be a massive ground swell in small business owners will outsource the delivery and management of social media. There is a massive opportunity for creation of and management of Facebook profiles/Twitter and Linkedin to name only three! The real success will come from being able to track and report on the ROI of these services.

Midsized and Large Business Social Media use
At this level we are going to see massive consolidation as the "cottage industry players" and smaller innovative agencies are snapped up by the "big guys" over the next two years. The emphasis and service delivery will move towards a need to understand and manage data using very sophisticated analytic tools to track not only inbound sentiment from the market but fully integrated inbound and outbound marketing

TactixSocialMedia is an internet marketing company based in UK, The company specializes in Social Media services and software that help companies increase their brand recognition by expanding their presence on the web - www.tactixsocialmedia.com

Report: Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist: Be Proactive or Become Social Media Help Desk

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Report: Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist: Be Proactive or Become Social Media Help Desk

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