A law firm administrator approached me a couple of weeks ago with some questions about Twitter. She flattered me excessively and I was, of course, putty in her hands. I answered her questions for as long as she kept asking.

One question that came up, and I’ve heard it before, is “can we have someone else tweet for our attorneys?” She thought that the receptionist would be great at Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and could provide status updates for the senior attorney and maybe some others.

I’ve also had this come up in the context of blogging. The idea of having a ghost writer attorney, or a marketing person, handle the blogging for the firm comes up with some frequency.

Unfortunately, I don’t think social media should be delegated. In fact, if the people you want on Twitter, Facebook, etc. don’t want to be there then I don’t think they should be there. Social media really doesn’t work unless the participant is really participating.

Social media is social. It’s not like advertising. It’s a conversation. There’s a back and forth. There is honesty. There’s self-disclosure. It’s about being a real person.

Delegating social media would be like delegating your relationship with your best friend. It wouldn’t work and you wouldn’t have your best friend for long.

You’ve got to do it yourself or it isn’t going to feel right. You’ve got to do it yourself of you won’t create new relationships with new people. You won’t get what you want out of social media if you aren’t personally involved.

That doesn’t mean I’ve just added one more thing to your task list. You don’t need to be involved in social media. You’ll survive without it. It just means you need to focus your marketing energy in a direction that feels right for you and works.