Selling Social Media to Your Boss: A Seven-Step Plan Cynthia Closkey Big Big Design PCPGH4,

1. Start Listening Monitor what is being said online –About your company –About your competitors –About your market Don’t react yet; gather information –Look for trends –See who is participating –Get a feel for what’s happening

How to Listen & Measure Your primary tool: “dashboard” of RSS feeds –Google & Google Blogsearch Alerts –Twitter Search –Technorati –YouTube Bookmark key articles & data points Choose a few credible number sources –Alexa –Quantcast

2. Align with Your Organization Choose one of your organization's major objectives to address –No formal objectives? Articulate some: “Increase sales,” “Increase market share,” “Reduce costs” Determine how social media could help fulfill the objective –Online-only discounts -> Increased sales –Passionate customers -> Increased market share –Online discussion -> Lower support costs

3. Match Your Idea with Data Choose data & examples (from step 1) that apply to organizational objective (from step 2) Assess which social network will have the most value & impact in reaching the objective –Use Quantcast

4. Follow a Model Choose an example of someone else doing something similar: case study Map to your organization –Situation –Objectives –Actions –Results

5. Create a Proposal Develop a plan for a pilot project –Simple, low-cost, focused –Finite duration –Measurable results Create a one-page proposal –Goals –Costs and resources (including time) –Schedule –How you’ll measure results

6. Anticipate Objections Prepare to answer questions & address concerns –Risks to the organization –Past experiences and how this differs –Organizational culture Don’t include them in the proposal! –Put on a separate page for your reference

Common Objections/Questions It’s all people saying what they had for lunch. Our customers aren’t online. What if someone writes something bad? Who has time for this stuff? What if it doesn’t work? This needs to go through Marketing/Customer Support/Legal/etc.

7. Make Your Case Present in a short, face-to-face meeting Let her/him ask questions Be ready with answers Admit what you don't know Uncover the hurdles –“If I addressed that concern, would you say yes?”

More Resources “How to sell social media to cynics, skeptics, & Luddites,” Robin Broitman cynics-skeptics-luddites-tips-resources-advice/ cynics-skeptics-luddites-tips-resources-advice/ “Social Media Case Studies Superlist,” Robin Broitman 17-lists-and-tons-of-examples/ 17-lists-and-tons-of-examples/

Fallback Plan Send boss to our workshop: Social Media: What Every Executive Needs to Know (& your employees already know!)

Contact me Cynthia Closkey –Big Big Design ( on Twitter