How to get managers to engage in Social Media

Is your organisation just crying out for a Social media campaign? If you can see the great potential that Social Media could have within your organisation then it may be the case that you want to encourage a change in your workplace or approach a member of senior management to tell them about of the benefits of social media .The only problem is it can often be a struggle to convince managers who are stuck in their ways and are so used the traditional ways things have always worked.

If you want to influence a manager to consider how Social Media can help to build on your organisation here are a few steps you can take to persuade them to give it a try.

The first thing you can do before you decide to approach any member of senior management is to get the support of other board members or colleagues who influence the managers. Those people who help to make the decisions with managers can be your allies so explain to them what you can gain through social media and the positive change it can generate.

Another great strengthen your team is to encourage younger members of your organisation to get involved, manager will always see younger people as more in tune with technology so gaining the support of them will also help to give a fresh and exciting feel to your idea.

Once you have the support you need to showcase your idea you need to start thinking about how you can convince your manager to get involved. The best way to get a quick reaction is to show how other competing peer organisations are using Social Media with their advertising campaign. This will provoke a reaction that you can work on, assure you manager that Social Media is the way forward and that you don’t want to be left behind.

The next thing you can do to back up your whole approach is to any content or low key form of advertising for your campaign using your own social media account and start to grow your own following online. You can use the progress you have made online as a case study to present and it can work as evidence and set an example of the sort of success you can achieve.

You should keep in mind that as with anything all of these things will take time and people are often set in their ways so try to take this into consideration. Be patient and make sure you have enough research to present, remember preparation is key.

Social media really can do great thing for your organisation. With these few points you can hopefully strengthen your approach and it will give you the confidence to be able to approach your managers with zeal.

Picture courtesy of Daniel*1977