5 Social Media Steps to Learn to Earn "C" Suite Buy-In

Updated: October 15, 2010

True or False:

1) Are you trying to educate your CEO on social media and convince him how wonderful social media is for business, prior to showing him you are trustworthy?

CEO's don't need to understand the finer points of social media any more than they need to know how to fly a chartered jet plane. They need to understand how to board the chartered jet plane to get from point A to point B.

2) Are you trying to convince the "C" suite to use Social Media, instead of effectively utilizing the power structure underneath the "C" suite?

Understanding your own organizations power structure, who makes decisions and why, will be more effective than trying to get your "C" suite to allow you to use social media.

3) Are you showing other groups within your organization, i.e., product development, customer service, legal and shareholders how to utilize Social Media to benefit them, or are you keeping this all close to your heart?

Sharing how social media is benefiting middle management and other members of your organization is a great way to drive ground swell of the benefits of using social media.

4) Are you tying social media to your strategic goals of your organization?

Tying strategic goals to social media allows it to become a sustained effort by many, not just an individual effort. Trust, quality of connections, and quality of discussions are important to everyone, not just to sales or marketing departments. Don't silo your social media platforms.

5) Are you tracking the increase in customer retention, and increase in the number of referrals being driven by your social media strategy?

Speak in CEO metric terms, not Social Media Metric terms. I.e., CEO's don't understand that you had a 25% increase in SEO ratings; however, CEO's do understand that 25% of new business came from direct referrals from social media channels, and that customer retention is up 35% since implementing a social media strategy.