Laurie Sullivan for Online Media Daily shares her thoughts on a recent Forrestor study regarding the part of an organization that bares the responsibility for social media.

The conclusion is that responsibility is shifting from social-media only teams to marketing operations.

I believe this general trend makes sense as social media becomes more integrated into the daily integrated marketing strategy of an organization and simply becomes yet another channel that is “part of a marketing and branding strategy.”

Marketing ops often manages systems such as CRM, and with social media become a mere component of an integrated marketing strategy, it cannot be isolated from other groups. And, one of the better groups to handle it might be ops, since they should be nimble/agile enough to provide quick responses from a customer service perspective. Obviously customer service is just one component of social media, but it can be one of the most volatile and can strongly influence public perception. What better way to handle it then by shifting it to the folks who understand customers best?