On Saturday March 14th at 3:30pm Raj Malik and I are presenting a Core Conversation “A Hard Sell? Social Media & Your Boss” at SXSW in Austin. Raj is one of our resident legal Gurus at Network Solutions for Social Media and I do not tire from telling people that I am the Social Media Swami at Network Solutions. Steve Fisher and Jill Foster will also be at SXSW. Looking forward to meeting you folks there. Please swing by for the panel session. It should be fun!
This is the fourth post in the series of blog posts with the session as a theme.
So you have become an expert and now you are feeling like you can start making the case to the company to embrace social media. Here are the some suggested steps to get you rolling on the path to getting your boss to approve.
1) Data. Data. Data
Take a survey of what the community is saying about the company. Check Yelp, Twitter, Facebook for any groups talking about the company along with forums and use that as your ammunition. Categorize the lack of response to these comments. These can be powerful, especially if negative comments go unanswered.
2) Line up your team
There are folks at all levels of the organization that are probably already involved in social media. Find them and get them motivated to the cause. Get them to start spreading the word in their business groups, no matter what part of the company they are work in.
3) High Level Help
Determine who is the executive in management that will be the person that will push the cause for you. This person can be found by floating some trial balloons that include some of the data that you have collected to gauge the level of interest and whether the executive will be your advocate. Once you locate this executive make it easy for her/him to be your advocate at the executive level when you are not in meetings by arming this executive with data and ideas about the tools that you plan to use to engage the community.
4) Organize a meeting of the team and the executive to pool ideas and plan the final push to approval
Pull together the executive and the team of supporters to finalize the strategy to get to full buy-in. Also use this time to figure out how to address naysayers and anticipate arguments against participation in social media. There may be a lot of push-back initially. Be prepared. Also the multi-prong approach of having the various members of the team sell social media to their bosses while simultaneously having you and the executive sell the senior level management allows for saturation approach that eventually resembles that snowball rolling down the hill gathering speed and with it more snow.
5) Have a plan for approval and next steps
As you near approval, various people may start asking you well what now? You need to be ready to hit the ground running once you have the green light. Have an action plan and get ready to roll-it out.
Shashi B. used much of this approach as he weaved his way through Network Solutions to get to his Swaminess! Let us know how you go your company to YES!
Brought to you by Network Solutions®
