Okay, I had to start my first blog post at Ant’s Eye View with a funny headline. In all seriousness though, as someone who’s just left a social media/community leadership role at a large company and was part of the interview team for my replacement at Intuit, the right person to lead a social media team is S.P.I.C.Y.
Being a S.P.I.C.Y. leader is about successfully transforming corporate cultures to focus on customers while achieving company goals. It’s not about how many followers, fans, connections or Word with Friends’ games you have running. S.P.I.C.Y. attributes are:
- Smart: Do you use good data to make decisions, and is the data fairly obtained and applied? I’ve seen a lot of snake oil, internally and externally, around data, or the lack thereof, and the social web, so smarts are required to make sense of it all. Smarts are also required to do the hard work of connecting the dots between customer success and your company’s success. Last but not least in the smarts category is rigor around the data. Are you rigorous in setting real business objectives or you do chase after shiny objects? And, if you’re someone who’s rigorously set priorities, then how do you adjust as you acquire new information?
- Passionate: If you aren’t interested in talking about your products and services, then who the heck will be? It’s okay to care passionately about your products, services, company and, above all, your customers. In digital media, true passion, not smelly promotional passion, cuts through noise. Passion also cuts through the noise internally, especially when combined with the smarts mentioned above.
- Interested: Are you naturally curious about the world around you, your customers’ lives and your products or services? Do you take a systematic approach for learning new “cultures” and new projects and, most importantly, then apply that learning to constantly improve on your teams and your work. And, my deep belief is that naturally interested people are naturally humble. We’re all learning our way here, and being humble goes a long way when operating in new cultures and partnering with internal teams. Speaking of…do you do more to recognize others than to gain recognition for yourself?
- Caring: A deep, enduring commitment to customers (and soon-to-be customers) is the hallmark of a S.P.I.C.Y leader at Intuit. Thanks to amazing folks like Roy Rosin and Scott Cook, I learned early on about the importance of caring for customers and prospects by learning from them directly – through follow-me-homes, Net Promoter studies and listening and responding to them on the social web. And, then taking that learning and doing something about it, even if it hurts.
- Youthful: No, this isn’t when I tell you to hire someone who is 20 and has been using some form of digital device since birth. Not that there is anything wrong with those folks! In fact, what’s exciting about being youthful is the belief in the power of change. Change is a constant on the social web and in large corporations. Driving change, not be driven crazy by it, is the key to success in this role.
Most importantly, spicy or no, be a leader. Whether you’re going to manage a large team or influence other teams, leading is key. Leadership encapsulates all of the above attributes with the critical addition of being willing to make tough decisions, stand up for your team and lead what is often significant change in a large organization. Leading is also about understanding that you can hold standards and goals high, while supporting your team and internal partners to make it happen. All too often, I’ve heard folks say that “you can’t do “x” because this is all new.” Well, if there was anything I learned from Battlestar Galactica, leadership is even more important when facing the unknown.
Here are some examples of job descriptions for social media leaders, including the one I wrote for my replacement. And, in the great minds think alike category, here’s an excellent post from Christine Morrison, social lead at Intuit’s TurboTax on leadership qualities for social media folks inside companies.
I’d love to hear about your experiences either hiring for social media/online engagement leaders at your organization or about trying to get one of those jobs. What did I miss? What’s off base?