5 Ways to Sell Social Media to Your Boss - Page 2
4. Talking To Actual Customers
Some bosses - maybe yours - are so removed from their customers that they get a kick out of hearing from them. After all, if you spent 20 years getting your customer feedback from memos, you can imagine how disconcerting but exciting it would be to hear from, you know, a real human.
I recommend starting with positive feedback. Grab a sampling of social media feedback from your customers (just Google your company name or check Yelp.com, if nothing else). MarketingVox reports that reviews are usually positive - 87% of them, in fact. Print out a few and put them in front of your boss. Seeing glowing customer feedback will only get your boss more interested in hearing from customers.
In the up-coming book Secrets of Social Media Marketing, author Paul Gillan describes it this way: "Once they start taking direct feedback from customers, they tend to get addicted. Direct customer relations is like a drug."
5. Set The Boss' Sights Long-Term
When discussions of ROI come up, a time frame almost always comes up. "What will we get in the next quarter for this investment of time or resources?" "I want monthly reports on this expenditure."
This discussion is worthwhile and statistics should be kept to track progress. However, you will have more success in social media if you set your boss' expectations to cover a longer period of time. Engagement is a long-term project.
Valeria claims that engagement and impact on retention can take two years to measure. That's not to say you won't see results before then. Lewis Green talks over at MarketingProfs about the ROI his company received from their blog. But manage your boss' expectations and keep them looking at the long-term goal.
BL Ochman put it succinctly in this interview:
"You need to have realistic expectations, and know that conversational marketing produces results over time. It is not a quick fix or a magic bullet. Instead, social media must be integrated into the overall marketing plan for the long haul. And over time, you can build traffic, sales and your customer/donor base with these new tools."
So What?
In most instances, when marketers talk about measurement or ROI of social media, they are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. You can't apply a Web 1.0 gestalt in a world where the audience cannot only respond, but can also generate more content than any single company.
Instead of measuring how well we are pushing our message onto potential customers, we should instead gauge our success on the number of conversations listened to, problems resolved, and useful suggestions received from the community of customers we already have.
Your challenge is bringing your boss around to this worldview. And it is a worldview, not just some notion. It changes the way you interact with the world, so it's no small task. Likewise, it's a big job, so you'd better get cracking right now.
Social Media Linked To Trust
Don't forget that the reason to sell social media to your boss is so that you can begin to build a cache of trust with your customers. In truth, that trust is the real return on investment. The more they trust you, the more they will buy from you and respect your opinions.
Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus, said in AdWeek that "The other risk is that in the zeal to track, marketers and agencies will lose sight of the need to trust that getting closer to customers is a worthy goal in and of itself."
Marketers seem obsessed with assigning value to interactions on social media sites. But real success comes when you value the interaction itself.
Have you sold your boss on social media tools already? How did you accomplish that? Please leave suggestions in the comments section below. And if you haven't already, subscribe, where I regularly blog on these topics.
DJ Francis is the founder and author of OnlineMarketerBlog.com - a business blog at the intersection of marketing, copywriting, and social media.
Comments
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oh no. . .pagination comes to RWW. . .boo
When is the post for 5 ways to sell your value to the boss and keep your job in tough economic times coming? ;)
Posted by: Mark Krynsky
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October 9, 2008 10:30 PM
@Four20, admitedly 3 pages was overkill. I couldn't preview it when I edited. Cut it back to 2. But pagination us useful for long articles, so get used to it :-)
"In most instances, when marketers talk about measurement or ROI of social media, they are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. You can't apply a Web 1.0 gestalt in a world where the audience cannot only respond, but can also generate more content than any single company."
I got a laugh out of that. You sound just like those poor "Web 1.0" fools who ran around saying that the "new economy" made old pre web concepts like ROI irrelevant.
I don't think point #5 can be stressed enough - it's the long-term value of insights gained through participating in social media that are most valuable. Best Buy's recent product line revamp to be more in line with customer's needs and expectations is a great example of this. Consumers are looking for opportunities to help make the product and service better, and companies that are receptive of this have a better chance of seeing long-term value. http://www.viget.com/engage/social-expectations-consumers-are-looking-for-better-interaction/
#4 should include Get Satisfaction as well.
Reason #6:
Because your boss' boss is going to ask about it, and your boss needs to be able to articulate why the company is/isn't involved with Social Media.
Because you know the CEO is going to see a report on 60 Minutes about Twitter and instantly firing off a message asking why you're not on the bandwagon.
More and more often, bosses (let's say Marketing Veeps) are going to need to explain to the CEO why they're NOT involved in Social Media, not why they ARE.
I think finding actual customers using it is essential. We did a live Twitter search with a hotel client to see what was out there. A bunch of tweets came up, one in particular asking for hotel recommendations in their city - that was enough for him to see the value.
With the DOD, it does not work. The Feds are very tough breed to move to social media and especially the contractor auditors.
I could do it but I have to work MY ASS off to do it. And government, I do not a pay raise if I do it so I am not going to do it.
Well, it'll may works
In my case, its going to be hard to explain to my boss because he's so thick. Anyway, nice points made.
"And it is a worldview, not just some notion. It changes the way you interact with the world, so it's no small task. Likewise, it's a big job, so you'd better get cracking right now."
I like how you said this. Social media has really changed our worldview and the way we interact with each other, which makes it even more important that companies are using this new outlet to listen and talk to their customers.
You mentioned that there are tons of listening tools; welp, we're one of them. We monitor, measure, and get involved in relevant online conversations. And just like you said, it's no small job. So for companies that don't have the time or knowledge to create the buzz they need, check us out.
Cari
Buzz.io
One of the top questions that boss are going to ask is how this is going to pay off. I agree that anyone that's trying to sell this should give some thought to that question and be ready to make the case.
Think about the values of your company and what's beneficial to them (sales, attention, inbound links, insert your goal here) and how you could make that happen more effectively with social media before you start the conversation.
How about some real metrics? social media sees customers returning to your site 5x more often and stays 9x as long. Peer to Peer support forums and fanpages drops customer service and tech support calls by 5-10. Cost of Acquisition of customer is $0-$10 instead of 10x higher than that in many cases. Brand recall is 5x higher than search engine marketing Seriously - these stats have been around since 2002 (well the McKinsey report has, and I've quoted the others since 2005).
If you don't treat social media as a valid business proposition, it won't get the respect it deserves in corporations. Stop the fluffy posts! :) Laurel
One thing not mentioned - as even a possibility - is that many of these rules conflict.
If you really listen and talk with the customers you may find that they have little or no interest in social media.
It is about giving them what they want and need, not what you feel like doing.