The boardroom conversion

By ChrisHall

Is it tough at the top? If you’re reading this from the twitter stream, LinkedIn or my Facebook link then we can safely assume you’re a regular visitor to the social network sites.

Trying to tell you about the virtues of social media and how it can help business to communicate with its current and prospective customers is futile, because you already know…the challenge is to explain the features and benefits to the guys in the boardroom or the business owners.

It’s becoming a frustrating experience when the twitter stream fills with lists to help you “create the ultimate Facebook page” or “10 ways to up your followers in Twitter”. Its frustrating because most of the people reading those tweets already understand the processes.

The problem is that the target market isn’t in twitter or Facebook all day long and doesn’t check into LinkedIn or Foursquare every day. They are running their businesses and trying to ensure they move forward and keep costs down.

The irony is is that there is a wonderful synergy between social media and business: social media can be a cost effective tool to integrate into an organisations marketing strategy and business can well do without costly advertising or traditional marketing costs right now and a fresh alternative which brings a return on investment would be a welcome addition.

So what next?

The decision makers in business are [generally speaking] not part of the social media set yet social media “experts” fill the streams with tips/advice and how to guides. This is the problem, when applying its approach to business, as it needs to spin itself on its head and look to the traditional methods it’s trying to replace when marketing itself.

Decision makers read emails, look at adverts, attend seminars and events, observe the media and receive direct mail so if you want to start to convert the boardroom and not just your Klout score maybe its time to look past the keyboard and into the 20th century.