Social media leaders are often faced with the challenge of adding headcount to their teams to expand their programs and advance their strategies.
When SocialMedia.org Board Chair Mike Disser, Social Media and Customer Experience Manager at Nissan, was looking for support to gain more resources for his social media team, he went to his peers in our community to learn how to make the case for increased team size.
Start by benchmarking with similarly sized companies
Mike needed to benchmark with his peers to gain a better understanding of how to improve his team’s responsibilities and structure and wanted to learn how he could make a case to his executives for more dedicated social media team members.
Knowing the challenges he faced, Mike leaned on his peers leading social media at the world’s largest brands to gain insights on how he could successfully expand his team and their efforts.
Next: Just ask!
Using our confidential online member hub, Mike reached out to the community to ask for input on how to structure his team and secure buy-in from his senior management for more headcount.
Within a couple of days, several social media leaders at the world’s largest brands provided Mike with information on how their teams are structured and shared insights on how to streamline his team’s duties.
Mike said he received so much feedback from his peers and took the information he gained to his senior leadership team to make a case for additional headcount.
He successfully made a proposal to his senior leaders, and as a result, his team grew from eight to 13.
“It’s a direct result of the community sharing information and us being able to take that information and tell the story of why we need more people,” Mike said.
Get answers — on demand — from your peers
When social media leaders need insights on how to make a case for executives to increase headcount, SocialMedia.org provides our members with access to actionable advice from their peers.
Mike was able to expand his social media team at Nissan by using the information he gained directly from his peers in our community, and within just a couple of days, he successfully made the case to his senior leadership team and increased his team size, and updated their structure.
If you lead social media at a large company, you can apply to gain access to peer insights and benchmark your strategy and advance your goals.