Last month I wrote a post called, Three Questions Your Social Media Pitch Should Answer, and it’s doing pretty well for itself relatively speaking… Yesterday I spoke at a Kentucky IABC luncheon about the internal social media pitch, so I guess it’s becoming a trending topic with me lately.
Social Media Projects Aren’t Different
The main point that I tried to drive home in the presentation was that social media projects aren’t any different than any other type of project that you have to pitch internally. There are three things that you need to understand about your boss, your department, or your enterprise, before putting your pitch together and they happen to be:
fears Figuring out what scares the decision makers is easy when you ask them. It could be a fear of idle time if you let employees onto Facebook at work. It could be the fear of more communications from your customers than your organization can handle. It could be the fear of losing a perceived amount of control over associates. Whatever the case, you need to understand what the fears are so that you can develop answers for them.
language You need to know which buzz-word bingo terms your leadership cares about the most, so that you can address them in your social media pitch. Is it customer acquisition, customer retention, synergy or even the infamous ROI? Whatever the case may be, figure out what the boss cares about and then tailor your pitch to address it. Speak the same language and improve your chances of a successful pitch.
planning Every organization plans for things, so plan for your social media initiative the same way that you would for any other project. If it needs a charter and a sponsor, then make one and find one. If it needs a crisis response action plan, then get with the right people and make one. If it needs resources and milestones, then throw them in the plan. That being said, keep in mind that plans are useless but planning is indispensable.
Putting It All Together
Those are just the things that you need to understand: fears, language and strategy. Once you understand them, you can put them into a presentation and make the pitch. Remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and that you’ll probably have to do a fair amount of hand holding at first to get a yes. That’s normal, so the least you can do is have fun with it.
Go get em.
