This guest post is by Daley Epstein, a contributing writer for SmartBrief.
Struggling to incorporate social media into your workplace? Facing resistance in terms of finances and optimism? At the recent South by Southwest Interactive Festival, Greg Matthews, group director for WCG and former director of social media and consumer innovations at Humana, and Jaime Punishill, the global head of wealth online at Thompson Reuters, offered tips and tricks for handling common aggravations from attempting to integrate social media into an office.
“You are in social media — the question is, do you want to be a part of that conversation or not,” said Mathews. Although you may recognize this discovery, your co-workers may have some doubts. Here are some of Matthews’ and Punishell’s tips for bypassing barriers to implementing a social media presence:
- Don’t underestimate the time you will have to spend evangelizing: Talk patiently with everyone, especially with lawyers. Company lawyers will only envisions potential losses when evaluating new technologies. You have to make sure you understand the risks better than them, or the answer is going to be a no.
- Make sure the price is right. Most bosses hate spending money, but many popular social media tools are free. Use that as a selling point with your cost-conscious managers. Once you have your foot in the door and have some results you can point to, you can go back and make the case for expanding your efforts and shelling out for more expensive and effective tools — but do so slowly and cautiously.
- Attach yourself to that ever-popular project. Every company has a vanity project that everyone fawns over. It’s the project that despite budget cuts and other setbacks always manages to take priority. If you can figure out a way to involve social media with that project, then you are set.
- “Find the company that your company has envy for.” Capitalize on that jealousy. No one want to be left in the dust by the enemy.
What problems within your company can be fixed by implementing new social media strategies?
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From #SXSW: 4 emotional strategies for getting your company to embrace social media originally published by SmartBlogs
