Give each social channel a useful role

What this means for your practice

Assign a clear role to each maintained channel and plan content for its audience. Stop adding channels that have no owner or useful purpose.

What to discuss with your agency

Ask the agency to explain each channel's audience, next step and reply owner. Then test the plan against your actual capacity. Removing an unsupported channel may free time for better information elsewhere, but first check whether an important audience would lose a necessary contact or information route.

Put the brief into practice

Write a purpose statement for each channel and name the audience it serves. A recruitment channel may help potential colleagues understand the organisation, while another channel may direct prospective clients to useful service information. The content and response process should follow that purpose rather than default to identical posts everywhere. Estimate the work involved in creating, approving and maintaining the proposed formats. Include replies and corrections, which continue after publication.

Assign an owner with access to the information needed to respond appropriately. Review channels that have no clear purpose or dependable maintenance capacity before expanding into new ones. Ask the agency to show how a representative post supports its audience and what useful action might follow. Review performance against that role, using appropriate context rather than comparing raw activity across unlike channels. The objective is a sustainable presence that helps people reach accurate information, not a long list of accounts kept nominally active through repetitive posting.

How to check the result

Review meaningful audience actions by channel against its stated purpose.