I was speaking with my friend and colleague Tyler Willis today about social media and he made a good point which should be pretty obvious but is oftentimes overlooked. The topic dealt with being able to debate and articulate your position in a conversation. This doesn’t have to deal directly with social media, but in our case it did. In social media (and for that matter in any field), there are going to be different types of people; some will be extremely analytics and ROI focused, others will understand that 1.5 billion people are on the web and it’s crucial that their company is too, and other folks will be right in between.
The key to addressing anyone on any topic is to understand both sides of the argument. If you’re in the social media space this means understanding why an executive or an employee may have a problem with social media (or with anything else for that matter) as well as understanding the arguments for social media use. The way you convince people or win a debate/argument is to understand and present both sides of the argument and then show how one of those sides falls apart.
Here are some arguments that an executive at a company might have against using social media:
- It’s too time consuming
- People can bash us online
- Can’t track direct sales or revenue
- Don’t have the resources
- Time could be better spent on things that are trackable
- It builds personal brand but not company brand
Here are some arguments that a social media strategist (such as myself) might have for using social media (directly correspond to arguments above)
- Time spent building relationships is the most valuable thing your company/brand can do. Every relationship you build is another consumer or user that you can reach out to for feedback or information. Every relationship you build can turn into a brand evangelist which can then turn into another 5 relationships. Without user and consumer relationships your brand cannot succeed.
- It’s not a bad thing if people bash you online, it’s how you deal with the negative comments that matters. Negative comments are just as valuable as positive ones because you will understand customer pain points and how to fix them.
- In some ways you can track direct sales or revenue. For example, Dell made over $500,000 from listing discount and refurbished products through a twitter account that they created. You can also track and measure things such as links, comments, brand image, etc. that overall contribute to brand awareness and brand visibility. Think about how much more trackable that is then a large print advertisement or a bill board.
- If you don’t have the resources start small. Create a blog and devote one hour a day to it. As it grows and as the conversations increase you can begin to add other social media channels and features to the mix.
- Again social media is far more trackable than any other type of medium. It all depends on how you set out to define your goals. If you want leads you can get leads, if you want increase brand awareness and visibility then you can do that too. Anything online is much more trackable than anything offline.
- It builds both. Take a look at what Richard at Dell or Frank at Comcast are doing. Both are representing companies that have received kudos from the entire social media community. Frank responds to every comment or complaint about Comcast, I posted one earlier today and received a response within 5 mins. Frank is saving Comcast a lot of time and money by acting as their social media customer support representative; he can fix and diagnose problems from twitter! Richard from Dell reported that since the company started using social media that their negative online presence has decreased by 30% These are just two examples of how individuals have been able to use social media to build brand awareness while contributing to their personal brand. Personal brand does not sacrifice company brand, it enhances it!
Now it’s your turn. Let’s hear some of your arguments against or for social media. How you debate for social media with an executive? If you were (are) an executive how would you debate against social media with a strategist?
thanks for reading!
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