If you think the world is divided into two groups: those who “get” social media and those who don’t, you’re not ready to create change.
- You’re talking tactics, they’re talking strategy
- You’re talking output, they’re interested in outcomes
- You’re interested in social media for its own sake, they’re wondering how the activity will accrue to existing business goals
Of course there are exceptions to the rule. Frank Eliason from Comcast was able to extend the company’s customer service reach on Twitter without prior official approval. If you’re like Frank, you’re the exception. If you’re most people, you’re going to have to make a business case for cultivating a meaningful presence on the social web.
If you’re bullish on any particular toolset or tactic or particular social network a la Twitter or Facebook, get ready to talk about how your presence will relate to individuals, what service it will provide and what kind of customer experience it will generate for your brand. Nestle’s Facebook page was the source of some recent controversy, was this part of their strategy, or the result of not having one? We may never know.
If your answer is to just “be human” understand that being human is a strategy and “being human” might mean different things to different people. Get ready to flesh out your definition into a real strategy.
What about buzzwords?
- Engagement
- Authenticity
- Transparency
If you’re relying on these types of buzzwords alone to communicate your strategy, you will need to dig deeper to explain how these approaches translate to an actual experience.
If it seems obvious, too bad; not everyone can live in your head, or on Twitter. There are some people who think solving differential equations is painfully obvious, or remembering the differences between affect and effect. Whatever.
Your ability to connect the dots between conversations on the social web to business strategy could be the sole reason you have a job or a client. After all, if everyone knew what you knew your role might not be so necessary.
I hope this comes across the right way. My very unscientific observations indicate, in 2010 there are still way more people who want to be working in social media than those who are actually being paid to do it.
If you’re still in the social media evangelist camp hoping for the opportunity to show your stuff, the more strategic you can be in your approach the more likely you will be to convince your employer or potential client that you have the skills it takes to correctly identify the tactics and talent to extend your brand into the social web.
Despite the rant, I really am on your side. Does this help?
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Thank you.
A+.
Golf clap.
The difference between an understanding of how to apply tactics and strategy (and explain the value of them within a social context) is where most marketers fall woefully short.
It’s not that hard to show discernible, concrete results if you explain and present your findings in a way in which that everyone can understand.
The CEO doesn’t want to hear buzzwords…he wants sales.
Thanks for the golf clap, Stuart! So true – it really isn’t that difficult, but it helps if we can speak the same language. Over-reliance on buzzwords pretty much ensures long-lasting confusion (or just annoyance).
So glad you popped in with a comment :)
I realize there are some well noted C types using Twitter and Facebook, et al. I believe they, like myself are early adopters and by their nature will gravitate to any new ecosystem, gadget, whatever.
However, in the larger conversation you are on point. As a CIO I am interested in conversations about strategy, leadership and business models, not followers, trending topics, and who has the largest…whatever.
It seems to me many of the ‘sm gurus’ and wannabes are lost in the minutiae because they are not capable of or lack the vision to adequately frame a solution to ‘bring it to the table’.
This theory is applicable universally. I have witnessed individuals ‘flame out’ in the board room of fortune 500s due to lack of strategic thinking, insightful vision and pure leadership characteristics, well before the era of social media as it is now defined.
Just saying.
Steve,
Absolutely! There are plenty of social media savvy/early adopter executives.
I love how you illustrate this point. I think that will really help others understand how to frame the conversation so it’s relevant for those in the C-suite. Thanks so much for adding your thoughts!
It does help, as usual, and thanks for tackling this. I’ve been in a position for a year where I have a lot of big ideas and some innovative license, but learned quickly that I was terrible at selling my ideas. At first, I tried the “you HAVE TO do this stuff” because it will do X, X or X for you, or other variations filled with my enthusiasm and passion for social (as part of the mar comm strategy). It failed completely. I was forced (and thank God) to really examine how I present and sell my ideas as it pertains to the overall business objectives of the company I work for. Instead of using my enthusiasm (which can be powerful :-), presenting various case studies and other educational means to sell SM, my methods for selling social to the chairman became: here’s what, here’s why, this is how, and oh by the way — look what we got because of it… as it pertains to the bigger picture. By using this method, I’ve been able to continue implementing social into our overall strategy upon proving its ROI (things like increasing Web traffic by 10% from these three social sites, etc.). It’s not perfect and not how I would roll out SM if it was my company, but it doesn’t matter. It’s been great experience for me to go from full on evangelist to really having to sit back and think about the strategy and process that surrounds it and then sell it up — and ultimately implement it. A fabulous (and frustrating) process, but overall beyond useful to me and my growth as a professional overall. Thanks for writing this.
Lisa Grimm | @lulugrimm
Great article – thank you!
I’d even venture to say beyond creating a strategy, understand and articulate how your are going to know when you are successful. Perhaps share the buzzwords of social media metrics, but better is to think about what your desired successful outcome looks like and how you can know if you are moving in that direction. Use those metrics as your in-house KPIs in creating and implementing a strategy. Try then fail quickly and early to adjust and move on to accomplishing the real value for your company.
Shannon, great article!
Shannon,
great article, although I have to say that my experiences have more often been the opposite, especially when dealing with mid-tier clients. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had middle-management executives ask me to implement some rough ideas they have for a Facebook app or other social media initiative, but without being able to articulate explain their strategy or desired outcomes.
If I tried to take a step back to see how we could align their social media tactics with their overall marketing and business strategy, they usually get confused as it seems that such discussions are ‘above their pay grade’ and all they wanted was to be able to report to their superiors that ‘we tried that Facebook thing’ (usually followed with ‘and it didn’t work’)….
Sadly, most times decisions are made based upon the politics of survival.
Shannon, what I find interesting is how similar this argument is to the traditional public relations conundrum — the C-suite “gets” media relations, but virtually no other aspect of public relations practice. It’s not quantitative, it’s soft, it can’t be measured. But that’s nonsense, of course — if only we build measurable objectives and expend the energy to measure our outcomes.
As a new person to Social Media, I love to see this information and I am so excited because I am starting a new company. I will be able to look at the big picture and tie the strategy to the tactics to the mission. It’s nice to be on the field with people who share insight and information. Thanks Shannon for this information and thanks to @ShellyKramer for pointing me here on twitter.
and @KrisColvin too!
Thank you. I have been trying to feed the person I want to work for some case studies as well as a video explaining why Social CAN work for you. He is in the C Suite and he was sold but I think he got overwhelmed when I presented him with a presentation. I need to present it better and that is my goal this week. I want to be one of the social media people who ARE working in the industry.
For marketers (like me), your advice is timely and on point. A few months ago we adjusted our own marketing strategy to address C-suite executives directly rather than try to influence them through their creative and social departments. Talking in social speak means nothing to the C-suite. They want the bottom line, and they don’t necessarily want to reorganize the whole company to get there. They understand cost/benefit and want us to explain our services in those terms. Thanks for stating that so well.
Shannon I love this post because it goes to the heart of how to sell social media to a company. If you want the boss to sign off on social media efforts, then you have to make sure that s/he understands how their business will benefit.
It’s so funny because every so often someone from Twitter will contact me, say they are the ‘social media person’ for their company, and they want their boss to start using social media. So they put me in touch with their boss, and most times the boss says “Well I’ll be honest with you, I’m not sold on social media at all, but Shannon thinks it has promise, so that’s why we called”. If I tell this skeptical boss about how ‘it’s all about the conversation’, or ‘being human’, s/he is going to say ‘yeah, that’s about what I figured you’d say’, and hang up on me.
But if I can show skeptical boss how social media will BENEFIT their business, then they’ll move forward. But I have to move them forward on THEIR terms, not mine.
Love this line:
“““““““
If you’re relying on these types of buzzwords alone to communicate your strategy, you will need to dig deeper to explain how these approaches translate to an actual experience.
“““““““
So many people think they can ‘sell’ social media by coining a phrase that may stick and generate interest, but at the end of the day what are you really accomplishing by doing that?
A friend recently said it’s not about the campaign it’s about the conversation. I think this is one of the most elegant ways we can sum up social media and show the value. I don’t think it’ needs to be sold – I just think business owners need to be educated in how it can provide direct access to their community in real time. That is priceless.
Shannon. You knocked this one out. I Quote,
” there are still way more people who want to be working in social media than those who are actually being paid to do it.
If you’re still in the social media evangelist camp hoping for the opportunity to show your stuff, the more strategic you can be in your approach the more likely you will be to convince your employer or potential client that you have the skills it takes to correctly identify the tactics and talent to extend your brand into the social web.”
That is Occams Razor. It should be said over and over again.
Social media is a lot like a cake. Everyone loves playing in the sweet frosty top but very few know how to dig into what makes things tick. It’s like learning cover songs on an instrument. You might be able to play a tune but you have no music theory or understanding of where the notes come from. Therefore when the local band asks you to jam with them in the key of G… you look at them cross eyed.
Learn what makes things tick. There is much more to digital comms, monitoring, marketing, analytics and social than opening tweetdeck and saying hi to a friend.
Shannon wow you have have been crackin the wipe lately! Your direction and advice is on point. Finding what is important to the business market-share, customer satisfaction, customer retention, revenue, sales for profits, operational costs, time to market, then developing a strategic path towards moving the needle on those metrics (whether increasing or decreasing) people start listening and engaging at any level when they are responsible for these expectations.
I found some small successes in explaining everyday business scenarios or stories how the integration of the online world with the offline world to really drive the metrics they are looking to deliver. Adding in the fact this is not the silver bullet (which, what is, well maybe except the actual silver bullet) and this social stuff is just another piece of the puzzle, that can enhance or if done poorly can diminish the brand & business strategy.
Yes a little dose of reality helps too, it addresses you understand the risks and it’s not all pats on the back and “your great” sediment. This tells a leader “yes I worry about risk mitigation too” (another key metric).
Lisa and Keith Hi…..ooops thats right you said tweetdeck for this….
This is a great post. Manning the social media helm of a large corporation with several market segments, and several business units that interact with thousands of customers for completely different reasons, I’ve learned (and continue to learn) that executives (for a very good reason) require much more than just my ability to ‘join the conversation’ and make a few people a day feel warm and fuzzy about a few products. The responsibility is huge and requires much vision and appreciation for a solid set of objectives, methodical strategy, and a multi-prong approach with a real schedule and coordination.
Awesome job on this one.
Shannon,
Great post and well said. Also enjoyed the comments (one of the benefits of finding someone’s post after everyone else has).
You make the case eloquently and it is an important case to make. This year, 2010, is all about connecting “…the dots between conversations on the social web to business strategy” and showing that it can be done (and is being done).
It’s on us (those who are carving out a living in this space) to educate our clients and prospects about the validity of using social media to achieve their business objectives.
And so off we go! Onward…
I love this post! You are on point. It is not that the C-suite doesn’t care, for the most part, they don’t understand. The confused mind says no.
We, the advocates, need to learn how to speak their language, not the other way around. And if your job involves communications, then this shouldn’t really be that hard, should it? :)
‘If your answer is to just “be human” understand that being human is a strategy and “being human” might mean different things to different people. Get ready to flesh out your definition into a real strategy.’
I am SO happy to read this. I feel like I’ve been in a thoughtsuck afterlife for a while now + its refreshing to hear somebody say ‘take that oversimplified approach to social web marketing + realize there might really be something to it’.
All too often the initial approach to engaging people on the social web is the ‘add-on’ technique. Simply adding a Twitter | YouTube | Facebook account into the mix prior to asking ‘why?’ or ‘what are we really trying to achieve by adding social media?’ doesn’t guarantee to be an overall rewarding experience ( for both the client + its target audience ).
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