Who better to trust on the topic of getting social media buy-in from executives than Gary Spangler, the 29-year veteran and corporate e-Manager at DuPont? If Spangler can move the social media ball down the field at his multinational 208-year-old behemoth of a company, so can you.
As part of his Online Marketing Summit presentation this week, he offered these five tips:
- Educate yourself. Become an expert. Learn everything you can about social media and how the different channels operate. To further integrate into the space, network, join WOMMA [and, we might add, sign up for SmartBrief on Social Media to keep abreast of developments in the field each day]. Listen. Lurk. Follow your competitors.
- Start a pilot test. Limit your scope at this phase. The goals are to show modest but tangible success and make social media less scary internally.
- Socialize your results across the company. Encourage anyone who shows enthusiasm.
- Sell social media to stakeholders one on one. Start the conversation on an individual level before trying to convene a group. Show them what your competitors are doing. A related suggestion from Chris Baggot at Jay Baer’s outstanding OMS session: carry “back pocket data” so you have stats at the ready when you run into people in the hall.
- Enlist outside experts, but don’t give up your brand. This will reassure management that your brand is safe and will not be hijacked.
Image credit, calvio, via iStock