A social organization is one that has social media weaved into its fabric through a unified strategy across all departments, allowing all employees to use social media safely and consistently. We are now at a stage where businesses are no longer questioning whether social media is impacting revenue and key business goals—it’s about the extent of its impact on your bottom line.
According to McKinsey, enterprises who operationalize social are delivering on average 20 percent more revenue and 60 percent higher profit growth.1 To take full advantage of this on an enterprise level, social media efforts need to be scaled effectively, requiring your senior leadership to become social change agents for your organization.
Read through this guide for practical steps to attaining executive buy-in and turning your executive team into active social advocates instead of passive bystanders.
Executive Buy-in Assessment
Are you ready to talk to your executives about social media? Answer these four questions to find out.
FF Are you able to demonstrate how your social strategy aligns to specific business objectives?
FF Are you able to prove the ROI of social media in your organization through metrics, progress reports, and success stories?
FF Do your executive leaders have regular visibility or access to your social media metrics and results?
FF Are the majority of your executives active on social media and do they understand the importance of becoming an integrated social organization?
If you’ve answered yes to the four assessment questions, you’re ready to discuss scaling social with your executives and move in the right direction to becoming a social organization. If you’ve answered no to any of the above questions, read on for practical tips on getting your leadership team to become social advocates.
4 Strategies to Gaining Executive Buy-in 1.
Demonstrate the ROI for your current social media strategy Showing the ROI of social media for your organization can seem like a daunting task. Like any project with multiple tasks, it’s best to start small. Tie a social business program to both social goals (such as an increase in followers) as well as department goals (such as the number of new leads). The more advanced you get, the more likely you are to tie goals directly to business goals (such as attributable ROI). In addition, social results also extend past just stats and numbers. Consider the empirical value of building relationships, and understanding how and why these relationships can help you achieve your business goals.
Example Social Goals: F‹ Reach: Fans, friends, followers, members, visitors, readers
1.F‹ Engagement:
Posts, comments, shares F‹ Awareness: Discussion around volume of brand and products, employees’ positive comments and posts
Example Department Goals: F‹ Pipeline: Number of leads; number of closed won leads
F‹ Campaign Tracking: Reach, sentiment, attributable ROI
F‹ Customer Support: Number of cases handled, average resolution length, average response time
Example Business Goals: F‹ Revenue: Attributable ROI, upsell and cross-sell revenue
F‹ Customer Satisfaction: Net Promoter Score F‹ Brand Awareness: Share of voice, sentiment.
2. Align your social strategy to specific business objectives:
Identify the company’s key business objectives, and pick the top one or two to focus on from a social perspective. By showing the leadership group how social media can help the company accomplish its long-term strategic goals, you’ll help start the conversation on evolving into a social organization. Remember, business goals are very different from social media and even department goals.
3. Provide visibility to executives on your social media success
Share your social progress with your executives on a regular basis through reporting. Start with a small number of metrics with a plan to track and share larger-scale metrics over time. For added awareness, set up a social media command center, a hub of social media metrics to help your executives better visualize ongoing social media results in real time and benchmark performance in relation to the competition. It might seem counterproductive to highlight competitor wins, but having a solid understanding of the competitive landscape is vital in helping executives see the urgency for social transformation and make better-informed social media decisions. The command center should be set up on a large screen in a high-traffic area of the organization for maximum visibility.
4. Initiate executive-focused social media training
Providing your leadership with targeted social media training is crucial to enabling them to better understand what social media is all about, and see and experience the value of it first-hand. This may include social media boot camps or reverse mentoring, a cost-effective option that pairs executives with social leaders in the organization for one-on-one platform training.
After completing steps one through four above, you now have the leverage you need to work with your executives to attain the necessary resources (people, technologies, training) and budget allocation so that you can drive social transformation across your organization
According to McKinsey, enterprises who operationalize social are delivering on average 20 percent more revenue and 60 percent higher profit growth.1 To take full advantage of this on an enterprise level, social media efforts need to be scaled effectively, requiring your senior leadership to become social change agents for your organization.
Read through this guide for practical steps to attaining executive buy-in and turning your executive team into active social advocates instead of passive bystanders.
Executive Buy-in Assessment
Are you ready to talk to your executives about social media? Answer these four questions to find out.
FF Are you able to demonstrate how your social strategy aligns to specific business objectives?
FF Are you able to prove the ROI of social media in your organization through metrics, progress reports, and success stories?
FF Do your executive leaders have regular visibility or access to your social media metrics and results?
FF Are the majority of your executives active on social media and do they understand the importance of becoming an integrated social organization?
If you’ve answered yes to the four assessment questions, you’re ready to discuss scaling social with your executives and move in the right direction to becoming a social organization. If you’ve answered no to any of the above questions, read on for practical tips on getting your leadership team to become social advocates.
4 Strategies to Gaining Executive Buy-in 1.
Demonstrate the ROI for your current social media strategy Showing the ROI of social media for your organization can seem like a daunting task. Like any project with multiple tasks, it’s best to start small. Tie a social business program to both social goals (such as an increase in followers) as well as department goals (such as the number of new leads). The more advanced you get, the more likely you are to tie goals directly to business goals (such as attributable ROI). In addition, social results also extend past just stats and numbers. Consider the empirical value of building relationships, and understanding how and why these relationships can help you achieve your business goals.
Example Social Goals: F‹ Reach: Fans, friends, followers, members, visitors, readers
1.F‹ Engagement:
Posts, comments, shares F‹ Awareness: Discussion around volume of brand and products, employees’ positive comments and posts
Example Department Goals: F‹ Pipeline: Number of leads; number of closed won leads
F‹ Campaign Tracking: Reach, sentiment, attributable ROI
F‹ Customer Support: Number of cases handled, average resolution length, average response time
Example Business Goals: F‹ Revenue: Attributable ROI, upsell and cross-sell revenue
F‹ Customer Satisfaction: Net Promoter Score F‹ Brand Awareness: Share of voice, sentiment.
2. Align your social strategy to specific business objectives:
Identify the company’s key business objectives, and pick the top one or two to focus on from a social perspective. By showing the leadership group how social media can help the company accomplish its long-term strategic goals, you’ll help start the conversation on evolving into a social organization. Remember, business goals are very different from social media and even department goals.
3. Provide visibility to executives on your social media success
Share your social progress with your executives on a regular basis through reporting. Start with a small number of metrics with a plan to track and share larger-scale metrics over time. For added awareness, set up a social media command center, a hub of social media metrics to help your executives better visualize ongoing social media results in real time and benchmark performance in relation to the competition. It might seem counterproductive to highlight competitor wins, but having a solid understanding of the competitive landscape is vital in helping executives see the urgency for social transformation and make better-informed social media decisions. The command center should be set up on a large screen in a high-traffic area of the organization for maximum visibility.
4. Initiate executive-focused social media training
Providing your leadership with targeted social media training is crucial to enabling them to better understand what social media is all about, and see and experience the value of it first-hand. This may include social media boot camps or reverse mentoring, a cost-effective option that pairs executives with social leaders in the organization for one-on-one platform training.
After completing steps one through four above, you now have the leverage you need to work with your executives to attain the necessary resources (people, technologies, training) and budget allocation so that you can drive social transformation across your organization
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