Social Media: Lessons on How Socia Media Drives Communication

Delivering Key Message - Social Media

In my experience in communications, Social Media has enabled customers or constituents to get what they need in terms of content and use it to deliver value.

Of course, the important element in all this is to deliver your key message or messages in online media in various ways, with various content, again and again. You need to manage the content so that it supports products or services, channels or promotions.

The customer, the constituent, is now involved in the communication. Is this dangerous? Well, not really, if you believe in your message. And if you manage your message correctly. And if you understand that the risk in not being in the conversation–the Social Media space–is far greater than engaging in the conversation and getting your message across.

So you need to get buy-in. I’ve gotten buy-in from a few organizations for social media efforts. I didn’t do as an effective job as I should have, so I am researching how to do that better. Here’s a couple of things that I’ve found.

Gini Dietrich writes:

… I found Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. [Note: this was a dead link] In the article, they cover eight steps for getting buy-in and managing change.

1. Creating a sense of urgency
2. Identifying a powerful guiding coalition
3. Creating a vision
4. Communication the vision
5. Empowering others to act on the vision
6. Planning for and creating short-term wins
7. Consolidating improvements and producing still more change
8. Institutionalizing new approaches

Another approach was from Caffelli, a Portland, Oregon, creative agency:

So stop thinking about a Twitter campaign, or a flash-in-the-pan interaction. Start thinking about a holistic communications [note: they said “marketing” but I think you can substitute “communications” easily] program that seamlessly integrates social media—that is truly what get their attention.

So … start the conversation. Get the buy in. Strategically deliver your key message. Over. And over. And over again.