Getting buy-in from senior management from John Failla of Eze Castle Integrations

How difficult/easy was it to get buy-in from senior management to use social media?

Introducing social media in any organization is a change management initiative, and must be part of a change management process. Any change in process within an organization must:
a) fit into the general growth strategy, and;
b) have senior management buy-in.
Any organization will have plenty of social media users, but it has been my experience that these users are usually the rank-and-file and middle management. The exceptions being of a few Social Corp pioneers such as Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos), Michael Dell (CEO of Dell), IBM, Sun Microsystems, Proctor and Gamble, etc., most of the senior management team is somewhat removed from the social media movement. Getting their buy-in in social media is the same as getting their buy-in with any change management initiative.

The first step is to go through some basic education with your senior management team and get them to understand the “W” questions (who, what, where, when, and why). Supplying the benefits along with a little education will go a long way in gaining their support. Fortunately, the company I’m working for now is accepting and opened to the social media trend, but I have not always been that lucky. There are many organizations out there, for one reason or another, are concerned about their employees misrepresenting their message, brands and products. For those who are experiencing this challenge, it is important to leverage proof (just Google: “Unhappy employees/customers + social media and you’ll have plenty of evidence) that there is little to do to suppress a misrepresentation from employees (and customers too).

Incorporating a social media culture within an organization is about trust and transparency. Relationships between your company and your customers, senior management and employees, and the industry you are operating in and the rest of the world. If trust and transparency are a big issue with your organization, getting buy-in from senior management might be a real challenge if not impossible. So, when you are having lots of difficulty with senior management buy-in, you might want to focus on taking some risk and ask for forgiveness instead of permission.

Here are a few of the benefits that I have used with some of my senior management discussions/presentations:

1. Unfettered access to all types of information – consumer/client buying habits, brand recognition, ‘what’s the competition doing’, (product) support issues, etc.
2. A renewed awareness of the company brand and its perception – Can you think of anything better than a continuous discussion on the brand?
3. 360° Engagement with every aspect of the organization – clients, employees, vendors, partners, etc.
4. Collaboration – online message boards, wikis, microblogging, etc. These are a wonderful way to enhance all collaboration efforts. An excellent example of this is Dell’s IdeaStorm, (http://www.ideastorm.com/) which enables Dell to gauge which ideas are most important and relevant to their customers and the general public.
5. Better control over the company’s marketing message.
6. Internally, social media tools can leverage status information, training, best practices and other silo-eliminating benefits.
7. Promote a thought leadership position within your industry.

Getting buy-in from your senior management on using Social Media, should be addressed like any other change management initiative. Briefly educate your company leaders, show them the benefits with tangible and intangible ROI and articulate the risks. By following this model, you will be able to generate interest and hopefully a healthy dialogue with your senior management team about embracing the social media culture.

See John speak at http://www.iqpc.com/Event.aspx?id=178794