In an increasingly wired world, businesses are finding it crucial to have an online presence. Whether it’s a corporate website, a blog or a Facebook page, companies are using every online tool at their disposal to gain an edge in the new battlefield of cyberspace.
However, the reality is that most captains of industry today were born BEFORE the advent of the Internet. This means that while they are geniuses at business and entrepreneurship, few recognize the true value of social media marketing and online selling.
This makes it difficult for today’s tech-savvy executives to sell the idea of online marketing, particularly when the boss can’t even understand the language. Here are a few tips for your management pitch.
Point to your competitors
There is no better way to catch the attention of higher-ups than show them what the competition is doing, and how they are succeeding at it. In order to show them concrete metrics, you can use a free online resource such as Google Reader, which lets you build a monitoring tool of social media accounts. Sniff out the usual suspects like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, and add industry-specific sites like forums or message boards to get a read on the state of your competitors. Point out that lacking your own accounts is like selling Beverly Hills furnished apartments in the classified ads of papers instead of Craiglist… it is increasingly outdated, and your marketing efforts are getting left behind.
Social media can complement existing strategies
Rather than positioning social media marketing as yet another new field that will suck company time and resources, portray it as a practical extension of your current strategies. For instance, point to how your industry publication now has an online version. Instead of reaching out through the sole medium of paper, complement your brand awareness efforts by participating in its online forum. From there, point out how a Twitter feed can help you stay in touch with these same resource people or industry bigwigs you are trying to reach.
Build a comprehensive case using concrete results
Most marketers make the mistake of running through the list of popular social media today and highlighting the number of users. Don’t.
The boss doesn’t care about all those logos or pie charts of users flashing on the screen. What will catch his attention is specific evidence of how social marketing leads to real purchasing decisions. So collect a who’s who of people, companies or prospective customers that are using Twitter, have LinkedIn accounts or a SlideShare channel. The idea is to show a picture of the social media world as a key driver of commerce and a way to stay in touch with clients, industry resources and prospects.