Social media activities are happening right now.  Conversations on social networking sites are taking place all across the world and if you’re not involved, they’re taking place in your absence.  Social media will continue to happen with or without you, so isn’t it better to take part and be aware of what is being said?

Social media isn’t scary…

Many bosses have huge reservations of being active on social media sites. When asked why, many of the reasons they give point to a lack of information; they need the facts and stats.

So if you’re selling social media to your boss, wow him with your knowledge and show him it’s not a scary place to be.

Countless examples suggest that it is far more damaging to be inactive on social media sites than be active.  It’s like a bunch of people talking about you in a room and you not being in on the conversation.

Follow the plan below and you’ll be wowing your boss with your social media knowledge and be well on your way to social media success.

Making your case – Create a report/presentation explaining why your company should be actively embracing social media and what it could do for the company.

1. Explain
As said before research has shown many bosses stay away from social media because they don’t understand it or have enough knowledge about it. To combat this explain the benefits of social media, and each platform you aim to use (Facebook, Twitter, etc)

Cover what each platform does, what it is best for , who uses it etc.

2. Current Conversations
Conversations are happening all the time and social media enables everyone to be involved and add in their opinions about products/services/brands so if you aren’t active on social media platforms you aren’t aware what is being said about your product/service/brand until it is too late. Find out what is being said, and who by – you can uses tools like TweetDeck, explained in the tools section. TweetDeck is great for tracking keywords or companies.

3. What are your competitors doing
Undertake a research campaign into what your competitors are up to. Find out if they are on the social media train,  how active they are, what they talk about, how many followers they have – what do they do – engage or just talk to all and not engage in one to one communication.

Also search your market sector websites (industry bodies/ events/ key personalities) to see how active they are. Check if there are any major personalities that spend their days tweeting/blogging about your industry/products.

4. Facts and figures
Research what your industry sector is doing in terms of social media. Find out about fellow professionals and their successes and failures. Look around for social media statistics when you are hunting out your facts and stats. It is important to give these as an example to your boss, showing that you have done your research properly and covered all angles. Remember why you need these stats and facts – it is to prove your point and make your case – your company should be active on social media sites.

Some great social media facts I found during my research include -

• Social networks and blogs are the 4th most popular online activities, even  beating personal email. 67% of global users visit member communities and 10% of all time spent on the Internet is on social media sites.
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populated place in the world. This means it easily beats the likes of Brazil, Russia and Japan in terms of size.*
• It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners. Terrestrial TV took 13 years to reach 50 million users. The internet took four years to reach 50 million people… in less than nine months, Facebook added 100 million users.

Ref : Econsultancy 2010

5. Advantages / disadvantages (show you have looked at both sides)
With advantages and disadvantages of social media, you need to show your boss you have done your research and have looked at things from every side. List advantages and disadvantages and if possible show how you would turn disadvantages into positives.

Examples would be :

Advantages

• You know what is being said about you
• You can get customers’ feedback
• It is a way to show your company has personality – e.g. photos of staff having fun.
• It’s a way to engage and communicate (not sell)
• Being on social media sites can help your sales because if people have a question that is stopping them purchasing they can ask and get a quick response and go on to purchase whereas without, they probably would not purchase.
• It helps get you message out to wider audience – Facebook alone has more than 500 million users.
• You have control of your message –  it is not sent via third party channels i.e. by contrast, you send a press release to a magazine, and the magazine publishes information how they want to (if they even publish it)

Disadvantages

• You can’t control what people say – although I would say this is even more of a reason to be active on social media because then you know what is being said, by who etc and you can also have your say about things.
• The conversation may not always be what you want it to be.

With disadvantages you need to prove and show that you have a plan for when you are asked about this product/service, this issue or if the conversation turns to something you would prefer wasn’t discussed. You need to show your boss you have a plan/policies already in place for such issues or risks.  You could consider Search Engine Reputation Management as a plan for extreme cases.

6. Action plan
Next stage, Action Plan – it’s all about the plan!

Show you have an action plan – How you are going to go about creating and maintaining your social media presence. How many hours it will take to set up? How long they will take each day to maintain? What you will tweet about?  How do you intend to resolve issues and crises? Show your boss you have thought about every step.

One platform at a time
I would say it is better to start with one social media platform at a time. They all work differently so spend time getting to know them and how each works, what they would offer to your company. Pick your top three and say these are the ones you wish to be active on, on a daily basis.

I would say Facebook, Twitter and StumbleUpon, based on my experience and that they all offer something different. Do your own research and see which are best for your business. A great starting point would be our previous post – The ultimate social media list.

Followers
Explain how you are going to get followers, attract them, keep them, engage with them. Remember social media is a platform to engage with your customers, not a selling platform. Although admittedly if carried out correctly it will help your sales.

Chat
What you plan to communicate about – show you have thought about what you are going to tweet/facebook. You need to make your updates informative and engaging.

Who you are planning to follow and interact with – show you have thought about who you are going to follow, list the links, show your boss what they tweet about and how they interact with their followers.

Policy
Have a social media policy drafted. It may include points like employee guidelines, what is expected of them. Example: they have to produce at least one blog post a week (on their specialist area), they have to tweet twice a day, etc. You may also have elements in the guidelines that state that they can not use their own personal accounts during work time.

Outcomes
When explaining to your boss what you aim to achieve, explain what outcomes you aim to achieve and how you aim to achieve them.

An example would be get 500 followers in three months by seeking out people within your sector, tweeting about relevant news, industry and non industry and regularly blogging about company activities and industry developments.  When stating figures, don’t aim too high, it is better to be over your target then majorly below it.

Tools
There are a number of tools you can use to make updating your social media sites faster and easier.

TweetDeck – TweetDeck is a great way to manage and see who is saying what about you on social networking sites. You can set up columns and hashtag terms you wish to know about i.e. #socialmedia or #seo and then every time someone hashtags or tweets about your chosen term it will appear in your column meaning the information comes to you and you don’t have to hunt for the information. You can pull your Twitter and Facebook feeds into TweetDeck.

Ping.fm – Ping is great way to update your social media sites all at once, meaning you ping your update, which maybe a new article, new links, etc, to Facebook, Twitter, Digg, WordPress, Blogger etc all at the same time, saving you time when you have various profiles to maintain.

and finally…
Your boss should now be either totally into social media or really interested to find more. If he or she wishes to know more, go away and research the areas they have asked about because you’re close to changing their mind about social media so keep rolling with it.

If your boss is still against social media, don’t give up, keep researching and keeping up with social media goings on and revisit it again in the future. If the social media market changes for you, i.e. your big competitor starts actively undertaking social media your boss may change their mind very quickly.

Remember this challenge is not easy, bear with it. One person can change how a company thinks and acts – it just takes time and patience.

So there you go, go wow your boss and let us know how you get on. Did it work?