Over the last few months I’ve come in contact with a number of organizations that are struggling with social media. Some are struggling with understanding the ideas behind social media. Others are struggling with the implementation of blogs, podcasts and RSS feeds.

On a few occasions I’ve been directed to work with or review the work of the ‘webmasters’ for these organizations. In all cases the webmaster was quite ignorant on the tools and techniques used on the web in 2007. These folks excel in areas like uploading via FTP, page creation with FrontPage or Dreamweaver, developing Flash intros, etc.

When the discussion turns to RSS, Blogs, Podcasting or Wikis things get a little bit murky. I’ve encountered resistance at the thought of creating one-click subscribe links for Google or Yahoo. One webmaster thought this would be considered as an ad for one of those firms. I’ve also gotten my fair share of blank responses when suggesting we deploy WordPress or Drupal to help solve a problem.

When I mention podcasting they typically want to know where we should upload the audio. They’re rarely concerned about valid RSS. They’re rarely concerned about having a web presence for the podcast.

To make a long story short I think there is quite a skills gap between traditional webmasters and the kind of webmasters needed to design and deploy social media technologies. What companies need today are social web architects.

Here are some of the skills that I think are important:

• Understanding of RSS and how it can be used to distribute/syndicate content.
• Ability to deploy major publishing platforms like WordPress, Drupal and Movable Type.
• Understanding of Wiki technology and tools like MediaWiki, WetPaint and PBWiki.
• Knowledge of how to integrate media from major social networks like Flickr, MySpace and YouTube.
• Understanding of podcast distribution and subscription methods.

Does your webmaster have these skills?

[tags]Social Media, Skills, Webmaster[/tags]