Social Media at Work: Running Into a Brick Wall

This post is an oldie, but a goodie because since I started blogging in 2007, this continues to be an issue: getting people to “get it” regarding the power and influence of social media at work. I update this post about once a year and am always surprised that many of us are STILL trying to convince people that social media matters in the workplace — A LOT.

Like many of us who have worked in social media before it was called social media, what do you do when you run into roadblocks and brick walls- mindsets on the part of clients, or harder, internal bosses that either ignore the good advice you have given them, are afraid of it, ignore it, or simply veto it?

Having found myself in this situation many, many times, I’ve come up with some suggestions that may help you from going insane when you know you are right but simply can’t get decision-makers to listen.

Like any good social media program, your first task is to listen.

Before you tip your hand too much in the direction you want to go, give a “soft sounding” to the person who can either be an ally or an obstacle. Determine what her objections are likely to be and think carefully about how to refute them. But like a good lawyer, when you are building your case, think carefully about the evidence presented and how you will react to this. And this is only internal listening. To the extent that you can, listen to those who are important to your clients or your organization, and find out what they are interested in and from where they get their information.

Get a commitment to your social media efforts from the most senior person you can.

Think about it: legal will want to own it, IT may well want to own it if you are building in-house tools, your communications shop will want to own it, and higher-ups will want to parachute in at the last minute and offer meaningless advice (and I have gotten this one day prior to a site launch) “Black just isn’t really a business color. Change it.” All of this means that there will be some refereeing that needs to take place and the more senior level commitment you have, the better chances you have to move in the right direction. Frankly put: if you are going to get into a pissing match with people who want to own the social media function, have a big person who has your back.

Be a teacher first and an evangelist second.

My experience has been that the more senior people are in an organization (and I mean internal and external clients), the more removed they are from truly understanding how you can augment, extend and improve your organization’s communications efforts through a good social media program. This is not true in all cases, but (insert eye-roll here), “my daughter has the Facebook” is actually a teaching moment. This is an opportunity to point out that personal and business social media accounts have different objectives, purposes and desired outcomes. This may not always work, but if you find a generational gap, you have the opportunity to have what we used to euphemistically call a “teaching moment.”

Also, when you are teaching, remember to use benefit-oriented statements and language that people will understand. When you introduce or explain Twitter, an explanation of “a micro-blogging platform with a 140 character limit” will ultimately result in a glazed over look, especially if you are dealing with a knowledge or generation gap. Something that may lead to more success would be a statement like “Twitter is a place online where people can follow us and hear what we have to say. And we can link back to our Web site, drawing more traffic. Plus, it’s free.”

Know thine enemy.

You know it’s coming. You have seen it. Like a monster who hides in the closet or under your bed, higher-ups who either are afraid to try or expand on or begin with social media, don’t understand it or are just plain obstructionist, you are going to get the “What’s the ROI on this?” Suppress your instinct for the eye roll and try explaining that some things can be measured while others cannot. “Return on investment” is in and of itself a vague term. What is a return? A sale? An impression? A plate of pasta?

Once that is out of the way, one of the hardest conversations to have and get across is that not everything can be measured. Listening, creating feedback, engaging in dialogue may or may not be measurable. This is tricky. If you are pressed, and especially working in-house, I use the (ducking here) metric of cost per contact. I take the total expenditures of something that I measure divided by the number of measurable interactions. This is a slippery slope because a Web site visit does not mean engagement — you know it and I know it- but if someone wants a statistic, give them a bone to chew on. And gently suggest that in something like marketing, it’s also very difficult to make a direct connection between building awareness and relationships — and making a connection to sales. When I was teaching, I hammered home the point that the difference between public relations and marketing is that marketing is about generating revenue. Both are about building awareness, but marketing, like social media, is hard to tie to a statistic.

Begin with baby steps.

If you don’t already have a big-time social media program, start small. Try a Twitter account (easily measureable for those who crave statistics). Nothing succeeds like success, so find a platform that works for you that is discreet and upon which you can build success.

If competitors and doing it right, point this out as well.

Competitors mean competition, and if your competition is building a online profile that demonstrates success, this is a good argument too.

Know when to say “when.”

Sometimes, you are simply not going to make headway. This is something that I hear from my friends all of the time who have tried the above tactics and more and are left with an empty arsenal and a gun in their mouths. You have a couple of choices. You can bear it and try other ways (other internal clients or other agency clients to focus on), or you can go nuts. And if you are going nuts from frustration, go home and look yourself in the mirror and ask if it’s worth it. I get that it’s still a bad economy and that changing jobs is risky, but there are enough studies to show that stress causes illness. Is it really worth it? Ask yourself this very difficult question and consider getting the hell out of Dodge and on to somewhere will you have the resources and support you need to be successful.

Like Porky Pig said, “that’s all, folks.” Please feel free to add more of your suggestions in the comments.

Mark