If your organization’s entire social media presence depends on one person, you don’t have a social media strategy, you have a single point of failure.
And it’s more common than you might think.
In many public agencies, one PIO, communications professional or designated employee is responsible for everything: finding stories, taking photos, shooting video, writing captions, creating graphics, getting approvals, posting content, responding to comments and tracking analytics.
Even the most talented social media manager can’t be everywhere, see everything or tell every story.
That’s why one of the best ways to strengthen your social media presence isn’t necessarily creating more content. It’s creating a team.
Your Best Content Creators May Already Be in Your Organization
Think about all the stories happening throughout your organization every day.
Your employees are attending community events, working in the field, participating in training, interacting with residents, celebrating accomplishments and seeing moments that would make great content.
The problem? The person managing social media often isn’t there to capture them.
A social media team can help bridge that gap.
By identifying employees throughout your organization who understand social media, enjoy creating content or simply have access to great stories, you can dramatically expand your ability to showcase what your organization does.
But handing several employees the Instagram password isn’t a social media team.
You need structure.
Start With the Right People
Not everyone who loves social media should automatically be on your social media team.
Look for employees who understand your organization, exercise good judgment and are willing to learn. Creativity is important, but reliability and professionalism matter just as much.
Your team also doesn’t have to be made up entirely of people who want to be on camera or create Reels.
One employee may be great at identifying stories. Another may enjoy photography. Someone else may be comfortable appearing on camera. Others might simply be responsible for sending photos and information from their division to the person managing the accounts.
Build the team around people’s strengths.
Give Them Guardrails, Not Handcuffs
One concern I frequently hear about expanding social media participation is losing control of the message.
That’s where training and clear expectations come in.
Team members should understand your organization’s social media goals, voice, brand standards, policies and approval process. They should know what they can create independently, what requires approval and what should never be posted.
But be careful not to create so many rules that people become afraid to participate.
The goal is to give employees enough guidance to make good decisions while still allowing them to be creative and authentic.
Make It Easy to Contribute
If submitting content requires filling out a lengthy form, sending six emails and waiting three weeks for approval, participation is going to disappear pretty quickly.
Create a simple system.
Maybe your team has a group chat where members can submit photos and ideas. Maybe you use a shared folder or content calendar. Maybe certain trained team members can create content while one person maintains final publishing authority.
There isn’t one structure that works for every organization.
The important thing is creating a process that employees will actually use.
Don’t Forget the Training
Creating a social media team isn’t just about teaching people how to post.
Training should help team members understand why certain content works.
Teach them how to recognize a good story, capture better photos and video, create stronger hooks, write for social media, think about accessibility and understand what makes someone stop scrolling.
Most importantly, teach them to think like storytellers.
Once employees start recognizing content opportunities, you’ll often find that ideas begin coming to you instead of you constantly having to search for them.
Keep Your Team Engaged
One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is launching a social media team with a lot of excitement and then never talking about it again.
Keep your team involved.
Share analytics. Show them when something they created performed well. Ask for ideas. Recognize their contributions. Hold occasional brainstorming sessions or refresher trainings.
When employees see that their work matters, they’re much more likely to continue participating.
The Goal Isn’t More Content, It’s Better Access to Your Stories
Building a social media team doesn’t mean everyone needs access to your accounts or that you suddenly need to post five times a day.
It’s about creating a network of people who can help you identify, capture and tell the stories you might otherwise miss.
Because the best social media manager in the world still can’t be everywhere.
But your team can.
Want to Build Your Own Social Media Dream Team?
Join us for our upcoming TOC Briefing: Build Your Social Media Dream Team: How to Create, Train & Manage a Successful Social Media Team.
During this one-hour training, we’ll dive deeper into selecting the right team members, establishing roles and expectations, training contributors, creating approval workflows, maintaining consistency, managing accountability and keeping your team engaged for the long haul.
You’ll leave with practical ideas you can use to start building, or improve, your own social media team.
