I was struck by a quote I read yesterday in an interview with William Robb, the social media director of SAP:

You can build social DNA into every employee (and the business itself) yet still require a team of social media specialists who have deep expertise in the discipline — not to mention a more critical eye for bad behavior. I think roles like mine are going to be necessary for the foreseeable future.

I think Mr. Robb makes two important points in this quote:

First, is the necessity to build social success into your entire workforce. That is at the heart of what we do for our clients, especially through our concept of “workforce branding.”  We’ve demonstrated in measurable ways that there is tremendous power in leveraging the online presence of your entire workforce in a systematic, market-oriented manner.

The second key point is the emerging specialized role for social media marketing.  We’ve featured this idea before — the web is changing so fast that focus on this area will require specialized roles — probably for consultants.

I recently saw some fact in the Twitter stream that there were more than 300 third party apps just for Twitter alone. You could make a career out of just studying Twitter! I don’t think there are too many companies who could afford to stay on top of all the changes going on. It’s a challenge even for those of us who are immersed in it.

The increasing complexity and breadth of social media marketing will necessitate both employee involvement and professional focus.