An introduction to the structure and roles in SRO and Apostle

Now that you’ve decided to embark on a social media strategy transformation for your company, it’s time to choose your ambassadors. Every ambassador can be assigned to a group and different roles. Alongside your SRO Professional there are three roles in our program:

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• ‍Social Activator
• Social Creator
• Social Ambassador

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Youracts as the SRO project manager. In the implementation phase we often see the SRO Professional in a more facilitating role. This enables the professional to ensure that all participants are able to perform their tasks within the program.

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Your SRO Professional will often be your communications or marketing manager, or another staff member with insight and overview. In larger organizations, you may want to deploy two SRO Professionals. In addition to their coordinating role, the SRO Professional is responsible for disseminating the right content to the other ambassadors. An SRO Professional monitors, curates and distributes the stories that employees provide, in order that brand ambassadors can then post these messages to their social media channels. The SRO Professional assists the Social Activators in activating their colleagues to contribute and share their stories. 

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Social Activators are usually C-level management executives, often occupying top-level management positions. They make strategic decisions that affect the direction of your business. Social Activators play a critical role in inspiring the rest of the organization to actively share content on social media. 

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Another benefit is that they typically have a large professional online network. Their channels are very effective for sharing thought leadership content, claiming authority and raising awareness of your employer brand. 

Social Creators act as brand ambassadors: capturing stories and delivering them to the Social Master, enabling them to create social media posts. They may share photos and videos of an event they attended, of a meeting with a new client or when celebrating a success. But they may also send input from news items or blog articles within your industry. Creators provide truly authentic stories. The more authentic, the better the story works on social media!

Your Social Ambassadors are the people either inside or outside your organization distributing messages on your behalf. They share content with their network via their own social media channels. This may appear to be the smallest task, but in reality it’s the most important one. Without this type of networking, your content doesn't have any reach.

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Brand ambassadors in the other roles will also post stories on their social media channels, but for Social Ambassadors this is their main task. A Master ensures that Social Ambassadors are continually presented with relevant posts, allowing them to choose which messages they want to share. Users always retain the final editorial decision for their own channels. The SRO Professional does all the groundwork, then the brand ambassadors can edit and post the stories that are the best fit for their followers. 

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If you opt for an SRO program, your organization will be provided with the services of one of Apostle's SRO Professionals. This external expert will work closely with your SRO Professional and helps in executing the program by incorporating the Apostle platform and engaging your brand ambassadors. This additional assistance can expedite and simplify the implementation process, freeing up your time to concentrate on your daily work.

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Why this structure works

This role structure sets clear expectations for all brand ambassadors. The allocation of activities to different roles speeds up the activation and implementation processes and provides structure for each brand ambassador.

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It’s important to adjust the number of staff you assign to these roles according to the size of your organization and the volume of content you expect to be distributing. Perhaps you’ll need more Professionals and Activators to energize your team. Or, if your organization is smaller, you may only need one SRO Professional and one Social Activator to run a successful SRO program.

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The purpose of role division is to provide structure and create clarity for your brand ambassadors. Don't make it too complicated for yourself and your colleagues. Think about your objectives, then scale your SRO program to your requirements.