It's easy to put Twitter to work for your business. Depending on the size and needs of your business, responsibilities can be handled by a single person or several people assigned to different parts of the job.

Communication is key. Regardless of the size of your core team, it's important to involve stakeholders from across the company to develop a strategy, establish measures of success and define guidelines and policies.

Here are some typical roles you'll want to define:

• Strategic lead - Often a member of the marketing, public relations, communications or editorial team, this role guides the overall planning and execution of your brand's presence on Twitter. Responsibilities: meet overall business goals and ensure integration with internal stakeholders and external partners.
• Community manager - Community managers serve as the front door and face of the brand on Twitter. Responsibilities: in addition to posting most Tweets, they monitor conversations, manage discussions, resolve issues, develop content and raise potential issues to senior team leads as they appear. They are the voice of the brand to the community as well as the voice of the community to the brand.
• Corporate communications/Investor relations - Some companies use Twitter primarliy as a communications channel. Responsibilities: align strategy and content plan with larger company initiatives and announcements.
• Customer service - Even if your brand has a dedicated customer service account on Twitter, it's important for your entire Twitter team to understand the process for dealing with customer service needs and opportunities. Responsibilities: set standards, procedures and points of contact for managing customer service issues that come up on Twitter.
• Sales, Legal and IT - Many brands effectively use Twitter to drive commerce. It's also a channel that IT will want to watch from a tech perspective and legal may want to monitor from an approval perspective. Responsibilities: for sales, strategize and execute to drive conversions. For IT, look for technology security, reliability and scalability. For legal, approve processes established by the strategic lead and be prepared to assist if a situation emerges that requires involvement.