The One Response Worse Than "What's the ROI?"
26 Nov
“What’s the ROI?” is the most talked about topic in social media since…well…ever. A flurry of social media ROI posts by Really Smart People has the issue front of mind. Again. But there’s one response from the boss even more crushing than “What’s the ROI?”
Silence.
Resistance might at least assure you the bosses are listening. Their recalcitrance may simply mean you haven’t convinced them yet. But silence crippling. The only thing worse than being wrong is being irrelevant.
Why Is Social Media Irrelevant To Your Boss/Organization?
There are numerous reasons your pleas for a social media program could be falling on deaf ears:
Social Media is a bad fit for your company.
You’ve been a self-declared Social Media Wizard for nine months. Your boss has been doing his job for two decades. Let’s face it, maybe he knows something you don’t. Some organizations simply don’t need social media. Examples? I dunno…funeral parlors?
You’re irrelevant to the boss.
Higher-ups get proposals every day from staffers who want to get noticed and climb the ladder. Yours is just another pitch in a mile-high stack. Even if you’ve found the mythical social media ROI (which you haven’t), you’ll have to catch the boss’s attention (which ain’t easy), and prove that your risk/reward proposition has less risk and more reward than Bob’s (which it doesn’t).
They know you’ll do it for free.
Your boss could listen to you go rah-rah for SM. Or, he could just ignore you, and you’ll start putting the pieces of a social media program together anyway. You do the extra work, you make the investment, the company gets the reward, and you get none of the responsibility or added salary you want. You’ve been snookered, friend.
Here are a few more potential reasons nobody’s listening to you:
- You’re talking to the wrong person (a.k.a., NOT the real decision-maker)
- Your proposals don’t align with corporate priorities/objectives
- You pissed someone off
- You sound like the crazy guy who speaks a language NOBODY else speaks
- You forgot the “show” part of “show-n-tell”
What Can You Do If Nobody’s Listening?
Well, you could throw a fit. Stomp on the floor. Cry. Interruption marketing as a means of promoting social media — oh, the irony!
Here are some more effective (I hope) ideas:
Enlist SM advocates from elsewhere in the company. The company will have a hard time ignoring a groundswell of employees, customers, and vendors buzzing about the benefits of social media. Many hands lightens the load, no?
Report success instead of requesting opportunity. Every time you land a new account, solve a client’s problem, or achieve any other victory, brag about it. Send your boss an email and be sure to mention the social media tool that was critical to success.
Play the jealousy card. Has a competitor scored any wins with social media? Make sure the decision-maker at your company knows about it.
Build slowly. Instead of getting frustrated, start small. Ask for permission to blog. Put your company holiday party pics on your personal Flickr page. Plant a few seeds. Nurture them. Cultivate. Be patient.
Speak the language of commoners. Instead of prattling about Plurk, Yammer, Meebo and Fizzidoodle (okay, I made that one up), get back to the common English you used before you were a social media dork. Try analogies. The phrase “social networking” may sound buzzword-y to your boss, but he knows what the Rotary Club is.
Even if you try these techniques, you may still get pushback. But hey, pushback’s a good thing. At least you know they’re listening.
Hah, excellent post. You hit on many of the heads that have been with any new technology in a company mid+ sized. Good job!
Hah, excellent post. You hit on many of the heads that have been with any new technology in a company mid+ sized. Good job!
I think there's also many bosses instinctive fear of not having complete control over the message. I've run into the dreaded, out-of-hand, “We're just not ready for that. Next topic?” response that fits a pattern of desiring top-down control in all external communications. Starting up an open-ended public conversation is viewed as a threat & the very idea gets dismissed before the potential benefits can be analyzed and weighed vs. the perceived costs.
I do like the “build slowly” idea – in such cases as I described above, proposing a small-scale, “just-to-test-the-waters” pilot program can yield a few important early wins that will be persuasive when later lobbying for a more fully realized social media commitment.
Especially if you can manage it so the boss thinks that he thought of it first.
I think there's also many bosses instinctive fear of not having complete control over the message. I've run into the dreaded, out-of-hand, “We're just not ready for that. Next topic?” response that fits a pattern of desiring top-down control in all external communications. Starting up an open-ended public conversation is viewed as a threat & the very idea gets dismissed before the potential benefits can be analyzed and weighed vs. the perceived costs.
I do like the “build slowly” idea – in such cases as I described above, proposing a small-scale, “just-to-test-the-waters” pilot program can yield a few important early wins that will be persuasive when later lobbying for a more fully realized social media commitment.
Especially if you can manage it so the boss thinks that he thought of it first.
I think there's also many bosses instinctive fear of not having complete control over the message. I've run into the dreaded, out-of-hand, “We're just not ready for that. Next topic?” response that fits a pattern of desiring top-down control in all external communications. Starting up an open-ended public conversation is viewed as a threat & the very idea gets dismissed before the potential benefits can be analyzed and weighed vs. the perceived costs.
I do like the “build slowly” idea – in such cases as I described above, proposing a small-scale, “just-to-test-the-waters” pilot program can yield a few important early wins that will be persuasive when later lobbying for a more fully realized social media commitment.
Especially if you can manage it so the boss thinks that he thought of it first.