Making the case

Chuck Hollis had the challenge of introducing social media to a large corporation and produced a very full Social Media Proficiency Strategy explaining what was involved. Internal organisational sponsorship was key to their success, but they didn’t waste time trying to convince everybody. They didn’t need every part of the organisation to support them fully: they just needed a few, and to make sure that no-one strenuously objected to what they were doing. They also found that the natural tendency was to over-complicate things, so the team spent time simplifying the communication of ideas at every opportunity: better to communicate a few ideas effectively than fail at communicating several dozens.

So keep things simple, and work out who you need to convince and who you don’t. Begin by thinking hard about the concerns of the sceptics and cynics, and taking them seriously. From their perspective, they’re probably right – but they may not be seeing the whole picture. You need to find a way of showing them the parts of the story that they’re missing, and helping them to see that there are risks to all strategies, and that there are more opportunities available to them from engaging, experimenting and getting involved.

The first argument is that if your organisation won’t engage with new technologies, you can’t engage with the audiences who are using them. After a workshop on the empowering potential of social media, communication officers in housing associations remarked “We can’t do that – and they mustn’t do it either”. Their management would not allow innovative use of these new tools – so they couldn’t reach out to the tenants who had adopted them. The community was more agile and engaged than the organisation serving it.

If you don’t engage you can’t support your community effectively, and also you can’t manage what’s happening there. The figure opposite shows a ‘circle of ignorance’ common to many organisations. The potential of these tools to disrupt existing business value (such as by revealing valuable information, or damaging organisational reputation) leads the organisation to disengage – which means it has no idea what people are saying about it. Sitting there in blissful ignorance is fine, but it’s only by getting in the game that you can genuinely minimise the risks presented by these new tools.

Most importantly, you may also be squandering potentially valuable assets that could transform your business for the better. You may be missing out on amazing opportunities to attract attention and support for your key products and services, wasting lots of positive energy that could be harnessed to help your cause with the right technological approach. Let the people who want you to succeed help you.

Finally, don’t assume that your organisation should support you; take the time to prove that you have a valuable and low risk proposition. Ideally, make things happen online or in the real world and tell positive stories about what’s working. Show people some successes first, and then ask for time and resources to scale them up.

And whatever you do, always remember the golden rule:

“Take a risk, shrink the budget”

You will probably need to make the case regularly throughout your project. Whatever opposition you encounter, remember that no-one responds well to negativity. Don’t just attack their arguments: focus on the assets and opportunities – the strength of the relationships amongst your community, the resources available, the skills of community members, the advantages you would gain. Make people aware of these and it becomes easier to justify spending small amounts of time and resources to explore how to make better use of them.