The FINANCIAL -- Companies often have several different accounts or pages on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

As these accounts and the interactions with customers on social media increase, program managers must learn to balance the influx and continue to interact with fans.

The Altimeter Group surveyed social media program managers in Q2 2011 and found that, on average, companies owned 178 total social media accounts, not including individual employee accounts. This includes an average of 39.2 Twitter accounts, 31.9 blogs and 29.9 Facebook accounts.

Forums and message boards were more popular than YouTube, with an average of 23.4 accounts per company, compared to YouTube’s 9.4.This can be a challenge for a company, as it is harder to oversee and manage that many accounts throughout the enterprise. Companies often have different accounts or blogs for different departments or regions, and integrating their outreach with the same style, tone and guidelines is difficult.

Another challenge is how companies will manage the increase in customer conversations taking place on these various platforms, as users turn more often to social media for brand connections. Monitoring several social networks, different accounts and pages, and responding to comments take time and resources.

Of the social media program managers surveyed, 59% said they will streamline the internal processes for handling social media conversations, 44% want to empower the crowd to respond to each other and 33% will streamline with new technologies. But nearly as many did not know how they would respond to an increase in customer conversations online.

Coordinating across various social media accounts is important for a company, as it allows a team or individual to manage, simplify and improve the social media process. Additionally, educating employees and developing internal processes and guidelines are also helpful.

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