Who should own Social Media, the PR team or the Ad Team?

Who should own Social Media, the PR team or the Ad Team? - Special guest Colin Crook, Voce Communications How can we corporate marketers distinguish between PR and Advertising, since Social Media has created such a mash-up of our thinking? Smart brands are coming to understand that Social Media is an ongoing behavior change that pays homage to grassroots communications: it’s a mix of monitoring, communications, customer support and evangelism. Consumer evangelists can provide a bulwark against criticism and better yet, can gin up a wave of goodwill for new products and services. With a traditional offline advertising campaign, the client hires an agency to run a specific campaign for a specific period of time. Most of the work is done upfront and once the budget is used up the campaign typically ends. But Social media seems to work differently. Customers expect to have a relationship with brands and the one-way conversation of advertising doesn’t appear to satiated that need. But honest conversations are labor intensive, and require lots of work. So who is better suited?