GUIDE Scaling Social Media. The Path to Scaling Social Media Starts with Executive Buy-in

Transcription

1 GUIDE Scaling Social Media The Path to Scaling Social Media Starts with Executive Buy-in

2 Scaling Social Media The Path to Scaling Social Media Starts with Executive Buy-in 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. The Current State of Executive Buy-in In a recent report on the state of social business, the Altimeter Group found that, only 52% of companies say that executives are informed, engaged, and aligned with their company s social strategy which limits the social growth path. 2 So, why is it important to get executive buy-in? Shifting the internal culture towards social media integration is integral to supporting the social media transformation organization-wide. You are going to need resources for training and tools to get employees on board with your social media strategy, new technology, and new social workflow. Executive Buy-in Assessment Are you ready to talk to your executives about social media? Answer these four questions to find out. FFAre you able to demonstrate how your social strategy aligns to specific business objectives? FFAre you able to prove the ROI of social media in your organization through metrics, progress reports, and success stories? FFDo your executive leaders have regular visibility or access to your social media metrics and results? FFAre 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. 2

3 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. How We Help Prove ROI with Hootsuite Analytics Example Social Goals: FReach: Fans, friends, followers, members, visitors, readers FEngagement: Posts, comments, shares FAwareness: Discussion around volume of brand and products, employees positive comments and posts Example Department Goals: FPipeline: Number of leads; number of closed won leads FCampaign Tracking: Reach, sentiment, attributable ROI FCustomer Support: Number of cases handled, average resolution length, average response time Example Business Goals: FRevenue: Attributable ROI, upsell and cross-sell revenue FCustomer Satisfaction: Net Promoter Score Organizations looking for ways to prove ROI to executives can use Hootsuite Analytics and ubervu via Hootsuite to track the progress of their social media efforts and create custom reports on the results. ubervu via Hootsuite is a best-of-breed analytics solution to empower quicker and more effective action based on data insights. It continually monitors more than 100 million channels and sets up automated notifications for spikes in sentiment, mentions, or influencers weighing in on your brand. ubervu via Hootsuite enables access to historical data along with the ability to filter on more than 50 languages, 35+ social networks, geolocation, sentiment, gender, tags, and influence. Uncover breaking news and trends from across the web on your competition and benchmark performance against competitors on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis. FBrand Awareness: Share of voice, sentiment 3

4 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. How We Help The Social Media Command Center: Show, While You Tell The Social Media Command Center for Enterprise is one of the easiest and most effective methods of giving executives an at-a-glance look at your company s activity in the social media sphere, including real-time conversations and social media analytics. The social media command center helps to monitor KPIs and showcase how social media is a valuable asset for informing business decisions. Administrative [Executive] support for social media comes only after you have a few successes under your belt. Prove your strategy first in small ways, document the results, and watch them take notice. Christopher Spencer, Content Strategist at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas 1. McKinsey Report, The Social Economy: Unlocking Value and Productivity Through Social Technologies, Altimeter Group, The State of Social Business 2013: The Maturing of Social Media into Social Business,

5 About Hootsuite Enterprise Partner with Hootsuite to accelerate your social transformation Social Media Management Social Marketing 9:35 am pm Social Customer Service Social Selling Hootsuite Enterprise empowers organizations to execute business strategies for the social media era. As the world s most widely used social relationship platform, Hootsuite Enterprise enables global businesses to scale social media activities across multiple teams, departments, and business units. Our versatile platform supports a thriving ecosystem of technology integrations, allowing businesses to extend social media into existing systems and programs. We help organizations create deeper relationships with customers and draw meaningful insights from social media data. Innovating since day one, we continue to help businesses pioneer the social media landscape and accelerate their success through education and professional services. Request a custom demo today by visiting enterprise.hootsuite.com Trusted by 744 of the Fortune 1000