I want to revisit a topic that my colleague Mike Manuel brought up in August of last year: Social Media Monitoring and Engagement Strategy. As Mike pointed out, for many firms the strategy is rather shallow, that is, ‘We listen and respond’…but as he asked, how? why? and the ever important question, how are you measuring the effectiveness of that engagement?

As more organizations pay attention to the social web and begin to engage what is the best structure for this?

What is the best model for online engagement? Centralized or De-Centralized?

Right now I see a mix of two models for companies doing a good job of social media monitoring and engagement:

1. De-centralized: A number of folks all have their own feedreaders and custom RSS searches. What they monitor and respond too is limited to what interests them, or the work they do. This may be aligned by business units or product groups. There is little or no oversight, coordination or measurement.

There are pros/cons to this structure. Obviously it’s good that those who are passionate are getting engaged, but there are risks with this. Also, without any type of metrics there is no coordinated tracking of issues for trends or determination that the time being spent is justified.

I think this is what is happening in many large organizations. As internal social media teams develop to form strategy and support internal folks this may change.

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