The biggest obstacle standing in the way of companies’ embrace of social media isn’t the tools, or measurement confusion, or even being able to make the time to do it day-to-day. The biggest obstacle is corporate culture.
New research from White Horse of 104 companies found that in 86% of companies, executives are not using social media. How can you instruct your team to implement and operate something that has so much potential to immediately win (or lose) customer hearts and minds, if you’ve never used it yourself? Would a company launch a major television campaign if the CEO had never watched TV?
Until executives move beyond the notion that social media is somehow for the rabble, and not for them – that somehow they are too old, too non-techie, too erudite to utilize something as juvenile as Twitter (which evokes the manic texting of their junior high-aged daughters), we’re never going to see full (or even majority) social media adoption in corporations.
Social Media? Never Heard Of It
This is of course a situation that is most acute in B2B, where White Horse found that 60% of companies either have low executive interest in social media, or have modest interest but a lack of education. This makes no sense. If anything, social media is MORE important for B2B companies than it is for B2C companies. Most B2B companies have fewer customers, so the opinions of each are magnified. Also, many B2B purchases are heavily researched, providing a real success path for content creation and socially-derived thought leadership. Lastly, the people factor is huge. You often are buying in part because of the service and personnel of the company in question. For whom is it more important to have a humanizing social media presence? A B2B software company, or Skittles?
Somehow, thousands of B2B companies seem to have come to the conclusion that because they aren’t being mentioned 65 times per hour on Twitter, that social media doesn’t matter to them, or their customers. The problems with that are clearly one of culture (truly believing that every customer is a reporter), and of definition (thinking that social media is somehow driven by Twitter and Facebook).
Be Your Own White Knight
I know this blog is called Convince & Convert, and originally I thought that was a perfect description for the social media and real-time business revolution.
But now I realize that it’s not.
I can’t convince companies that this makes sense, because even though I’m a pretty hype-free character (by consultant standards), I’m not viewed as objective by your CEO. And she’s right. I’m not going to tell your company that social media is pointless and “not for them” because that’s simply not true. Social media is (or will be) for every company, because customers will eventually flat-out demand that you interact with them there (the same way they previously insisted on interaction via phone and email).
But the job of arm twisting and education can’t come from outside. You can’t rely solely on me or any other consultant or agency to turn the tide in your organization. No stack of case studies or conference road trips will do it, either. It has to come from you. You have to do the convincing and the converting within the walls of your company. If you don’t have the obvious social chatter about your brand, you have to make the case that content creation will drive search, which drives traffic, which drives sales. You have to work on a pilot program – maybe even in secret – to show social media’s impact on customer satisfaction. You have to train a select few of your salespeople to build business by demonstrating category expertise in social outposts.
Do You Believe?
There’s only one precursor to successful social media adoption, and that’s believing that it will work. Too many companies are “experimenting” with social media because they feel they have to, not because they want to do so. And that’s a recipe for finding flaws and bailing out at the first sign of smoke.
Unlike every other form of marketing and communication ever devised, you can’t treat social media like taking medicine – something that you do when you have to, and only because someone told you so. The impacts and effects of social media are too broad for that. And the guarantee that you will fail at some point is too iron-clad for you to pull up stakes the first time someone posts a negative comment on your blog.
The company has to believe that it’s inherently a positive for your company to get involved, from the CEO on down, and that’s a lesson that only you can teach, however long it takes.
(photo by Mild Mannered Photographer)
Jay, this is outstanding. Red Chair was born out of this exact same realization – that executives need to become familiar with this stuff at their level – and still, we're a very long way from making the integration process as smooth as it could be. Your TV analogy is spot on. Your B2B observation is also spot on, and is evidence that you actually work with B2B companies as opposed to just talking about theory.
This is by far one of your most astute and important posts yet.
Jay
Now this is more like it; something that is *real world* and capable of being understood by business and those people like myself who, when discussing social media as tool for business, here the constant noise that it is simply irrelevant. I was surprised(ish) about the B2B findings; but not so surprised. The cultural one is a tricky point and I think until more businesses starting getting their people on the bus it is going to be a slow adoption process. Thanks again for the post.
Julian
Jay
Now this is more like it; something that is *real world* and capable of being understood by business and those people like myself who, when discussing social media as tool for business, here the constant noise that it is simply irrelevant. I was surprised(ish) about the B2B findings; but not so surprised. The cultural one is a tricky point and I think until more businesses starting getting their people on the bus it is going to be a slow adoption process. Thanks again for the post.
Julian
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This is a good one, Jay!
There seems to be a catch 22 going on in that if the CEO isn't sold on social media (as many aren't yet) then they won't approve the staff to spend the time learning about integration and measurement…which would give them the tools to prove its worth. I like the idea of secret or stealth programs, but won't these be hamstrung a bit by the fact they have to operate under the radar and won't be getting the resources or time to make them work?
Having said that, I am seeing more C suite execs wanting to learn about social media which is encouraging, but I get the feeling we are still very much in the education phase with most organisations.
thanks for sharing
Ed
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RT @jaybaer: Why You're the Key to Social Media Success http://bit.ly/9jzooL
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Great post. I think it's sad that so many C-Suite execs and “higher-ups” seems hesitant or even against implementing social media practices into their organizations. And I know that there are nay-sayers with every new communications tool and I think that is also sad. Companies that refused to evolve and appreciate how culture changed around them are the ones that were doomed (i.e. telegraph service).
It is important that, as marketers and business-owners, we know what business we are in and we are in the communications business. That means we have an obligation to communicate most effectively with our audiences. If communication is most effective in a press release, so be it, but if it is most effective via social media tools, that should be just as viable an option to a marketing or PR department.
Thanks for this post and I hope people take your advice to heart and start looking for ways to convince themselves and convert the culture around them.
Why You’re the Key to Social Media Success: http://is.gd/cYYmf
If I had to make a prediction, I'd say within two years we'll see social media skills appearing on competency requirements for management, if not executives. I wonder if social media training will be added to corporate continuing education programs. Or, will we have to wait for the prevalence of these skills among the ranks to occur through turnover and attrition? Thanks, Jay, for bringing this up.
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