Last Thursday, I attended BlogWell Chicago to hear 8 great case studies on social media. The presenters included Home Depot, P&G, Sharpie, Molson, Mayo Clinic, the U.S. Coast Guard, Allstate, and H&R Block. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend every session, due to overlap, but the ones I did attend were really informative. I have a far more in depth post here as to what was included in each session.
One of the things that many presenters mentioned was that when they began their social media efforts, they were “flying under the radar”. This meant getting started without necessarily getting approval from upper management or even legal, in some cases. To provide some context, essentially to get started in social media requires zero upfront costs, so this makes this type of internal guerrilla extremely easy to get started. If you start incorporating social media strategies, custom designs, social media monitoring, or a myriad of other possibilities, then we may have to start talking about investment, but until then, it’s entirely free. One of the more memorable examples was from Home Depot and Sharpie. Each had some internal folks who were extremely passionate about social media start a Twitter account, upload videos to YouTube, and put together a blog in a couple of days.
On one hand, I have to admire this passion, especially within larger, more traditional companies where bureaucracies can often impede ideas from flourishing. However, on the flip side, I understand the need for organizational structure and vetting marketing initiatives to ensure they are inline with the company mission, brand identity, and in the case of a publicly held company, investors and stakeholders. In both cases, it worked out for them as they were able to show real success with their efforts in terms of traffic to the website and buzz about their brand. However, what if it had failed, as can happen with any new marketing channel?
So I posit it to you reader – what do you think? Is it better to ask for forgiveness or permission when it comes to starting any marketing initiatives, in this case social media, in large organizations?
Jeff,
You bring up a valid point that is certainly on the mind of a lot of brand managers and CMOs these days.
It’s important to recognize though, that on any team, in any corporation there are going to be early adopters who want to test out new methods of communicating, or new ways of doing business. . .so stifling those attempts is a mistake.
What companies should do is identify these individuals, or at least allow them to be identified, then encourage them to explore new opportunities with the companies blessing. Call them beta testers, intrapreneurs, R&D. . .whatever makes sense, because these individuals are the lifeline to innovation.
By establishing ground rules, and encouraging people to help grow the business at large, it’s hard not to lose, and given the trackable nature of social media tools, it provides immediate measurable benefit for marketing and communications professionals.
For those flying under the radar. . .testing out new social media technologies, I would recommend seeing what works, but doing so with an eye toward caution. The old adage still holds true, I believe, don’t say anything in print/online that you wouldn’t mind blasted all over the front page of the newspapers. . .or these days, the front page of Google.
If you’re blogging, or using services like Twitter and are an employee who wishes to help their firm and keep their job, than this advice is solid.
If you work for a company more worried about what the disgruntled worker might say about the firm online, and think by stifling participation it’s possible to avoid the criticism, you’re dead wrong. It’ll happen anyway.
Let ‘em play, encourage good playground behavior, track the results, and beat the competition while the gettin’ is still good!
Cheers,
Doc
Twitter ID: @dockane