Social Media is not cheap
A lot of people seem perplexed about why it’s hard to get some CEOs or others in the C-Suite excited about Social Media.
“It’s cheap,” they say incredulously. “What more can a CEO want?”
If you are trying to convince your CEO or another executive to support a company blog or a more full corporate Social Media plan, using the “cheap” word will not get you anywhere. In fact, you are more likely to lead your CEO to think that you don’t really understand how business works.
Here’s the thing. Social Media sites are, for the most part, available for free. You can enhance the experience for not much money. So far so good.
Now, let’s say your CEO catches an article in the Wall Street Journal about how important a corporate Social Media policy is. She wants to get one of those in place before you go any further with the conversation. That means a lot of people, a lot of meetings. That means, potentially, a lawyer. That means a meeting or a series of meetings to make sure everyone understands everything.
Once you have your corporate policy in place, it’s a really good idea to figure out what you are going to do, what you want to achieve, and how you are going to measure all of that. That’s a lot more time. That might be getting your agency involved, or it might mean bringing in a consultant.
Now let’s say you walk your CEO to the point of having a Social Media plan. You’ve made it this far. The company has decided that a blog is a really good idea, and you want to promote each post via Facebook and Twitter. It’s decided that you and 2 of your co-workers are going to work on this. Suddenly, though, you realize that this Social Media stuff is a 24/7 proposition. But things are going pretty well. Your Facebook page has a lot of fans that are interacting with you. Same with Twitter. If you stop now, you’ll look awful.
Now your CEO is looking at hiring a Social Media manager, a position your company has never needed or had before. A whole new salary tied to a whole new category of work that was not an issue before you walked into your boss’s office and said that Social Media was cheap.
This is not an argument against Social Media. It’s an argument against saying that Social Media is cheap, or easy, or free. Your CEO may realize that before realizing the value of what you are proposing. Meet him or her where they are, and see if you can find a way to bridge the gap.
Image by Jenny Rollo. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/buzzybee
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Very Smart Post.
I routinely see Social Media consultants fall into this trap. Social Media can have an amazing ROI but it certainly isn’t cheap (or free).
Thanks Stanford!
Yeah, this issue had come up during a couple of chats I was in last week, so I wanted to address it in more detail 🙂
This is a very good, common sense approach to the topic of introducing social media into a company. EVERYTHING has a cost and it’s best to understand that up front. You also bring up the excellent point of how many people may have to be involved in the decision to start.
Good one!
Thanks, Mark. Much appreciated!
Of course, this post is based on the company jumping in via best practices. It IS very cheap if you start a twitter account and just tweet out press releases or ads. But then who would want to do that!? 🙂
Agreed – it takes a huge time investment and even a culture shift within the organisation. But the cost of NOT engaging is likely to be higher. Better to do it on your own terms than in the midst of a crisis. CEO reputations will increasingly be forged on their social credentials I think. (Found this post via @chrisbrogan btw. )
Interesting point. I think that could be a much better way to pitch Social Media to a C-Suite exec. But you would need to do some research first, I believe. If you can’t produce any tweets or Facebook updates that mention your company, or if there isn’t a lot of buzz about your industry period, you’re still going to have an uphill battle.
Bless you for writing this down. At the back of our minds we all know that managing social media saps your time and also your energy both mental and physical (at least in my case). And when you are doing college and work part time for non profits they take it for granted that anyone can do it without needing pay.
I think posts like this should reach out to the masses a lot more. Especially the CEO type masses mentioned above 😀
Thanks, Neil. I appreciate it!
Very nice thoughts in this post.
I see lots of brands/companies thinking social media is just about getting an intern to manage those 2-3 accounts on Twitter, Facebook and whatnot, and just spamming their ads over there as well. This, for most companies, is a social media strategy. Surely cheap, but useless as well.
Yep, like anything in any job, there are ways to do it cheaply. However, there are things you are missing if you cut corners. Like…quality.
Now that would be a very dumb CEO and if yours is like that, maybe you should be looking for a job elsewhere….
Social media is not something that can be controlled like a machine or a process. You can be sure that if you run your twitter account by comity your interactions will be boring as rain…
No one wants to be talking to a machine or a process either. Social media is not PR, its interactive, it talks back and that your CEO can’t control that no matter how much money he throws at it. Social media is like herding cats…it is by nature a personal and de-centralized activity….
This whole C suite discussion around social media raises the hair in the back of my neck. It just makes me feel like storming a boardroom with a pair of scissors and cut some expensive silk ties….Come on, relax already….social media is about being human and communicating…
The CEO would be dumb for wanting to do all of that stuff? Eh, not so sure. These are considered Social Media best practices.
Saying that a plan should be worked out before a company enters into Social Media is not a stifler on humanity. It just means that if you have 15 people out there working Twitter, they should know what stuff is company confidential, what their handles should be (is the company going to have you add the company name to each handle like Comcast does?), what your userpic should be – things that indicate you all work together. Each individual can engage individually, however. Totally a proponent of that.
As far as corporate policy, many companies have a Social Media policy even if they aren’t engaged in Social Media. Are you allowed to play Farmville during work hours? Probably not. Are you allowed to sign on to personal Social Media sites at all? Some companies say no. But then who monitors that?
The things I am talking about do not override being human. They happen on the back end before you really get out there.
It’s been a tough battle for me this year trying to explain to people the fact that even though access to these social media sites is pretty much free, that it costs money just like any position in a company, to make it work.
The way you have laid out the steps, which is VERY close to outlines that I have been through, is a perfect example that I could even show new clients now to help break it down.
Social Media policy, especially in a large corp, means meetings. Meetings about what to use, meetings about how to use it, meetings about who is going to use it.
Something else people seem to have a hard time wrapping their mind around is the time it takes to grow. It’s not some magic button, you don’t just go put your website link on a social media site and hope for the best.
You’ve got to actually spend time working them to see results.
Awesome article, thanks for sharing 🙂
Hey Bret,
Thank you very much for the comment. Sounds like you and I are on the same page.
Do you think that if I fleshed out this post into a white paper it could be a usable tool for you?
Hi Marjorie,
I’m so tired of hearing people say social media is cheap or free. They miss the point so much it’s scary – makes you wonder what else they get wrong and how it affects their business.
One of my favorite bloggers Danny Brown wrote some scary costs about social media a little while back:
http://dannybrown.me/2010/01/17/the-real-cost-of-social-media/
The thing is, even though they’re scary they’re also very accurate. Something more businesses should heed.
Thanks for the post!
J.
I agree Jason, and thank you for the blog reference. Danny is sharp as a tack!
Well I guess someone has to be the bad guy on this thread…
I beg to differ…I agree to the fact that social media cost corporations a lot of money….where I disagree with the statement that it is not cheep, is that it gives a false sense that if you throw money and structure at it, then you can control it. Many have tried to buy into social media and failed…
Companies that are most successful at using social media don’t spend a fortune on creating structure…it happens naturally within the organization. Transparency and trust is the major ingredient of any social interaction… If it doesn’t occur naturally then one should wonder if appropriate… especially with regimented autocratic hierarchies. In some cases the good answer to social media is simply not to do it. There is a lot of money being wasted in these days… a lot of snake oil bought…
I also think that big agencies have a vested interest in it being expensive and complex…most have not grasped its essence though… The best social hits are created outside of the box…
So forget the committees and the and start engaging your customers on a personal basis….that is what is of essence here. Companies that did this from the get go don’t need a committee to control how one is to speak… The transparency that is necessary for a real trust building conversation in the social arena can not be faked and scripted…
The solution is cultural, not financial….
I don’t think you’re the bad guy 🙂 Disagreements done with civility and without too much name-calling are fine with me 🙂
I see where you are coming from – it goes back to what I said before. Everything I mention above is just stuff you can do to set the stage. And I agree that in an ideal world, companies could be transparent and personable and not have any worries. With Twitter and other sites growing so rapidly, I’m not convinced that is still entirely possible, sadly.
I’m not sure big agencies want to frame Social Media as expensive. It is a question that is tough to answer, when someone says, “Well, what, you want me to hire someone to do all of this now?” How do you get around the money issue then?