Marketing and PR professionals continue – in droves – to realize the business value of social media within an organization.  They know it can foster collaboration among internal teams, enable real-time customer service, and create communities of fans and advocates who can help to shape a company’s products, services and brands.  Getting the C-suite to open the company doors to social media, however, can be tricky.  Management often cites concerns over privacy, security, brand erosion, and employee training, and they remain unwilling to invest in or allocate the proper resources (both human and financial) to allow social media to contribute to the company’s success and bottom line. 

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Most marketers know that social media must be part of their business strategy.  Unfortunately, they also know that convincing executive teams and getting company-wide buy-in of a social media strategy (and one with an actual budget) is no easy feat.  More and more marketers, however, are finding success by building a case for social media within their organization by putting concrete action plans and real metrics in front of their C-suites, and attributing true ROI to their efforts.  These are the marketing champions who have proven that they can use social media to connect with customers and truly impact their business, brand, and bottom line.  Want to become a champion?  Join us for “Impacting Business with Social Media,” a free webinar hosted by Brian Solis.

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Congratulations!  You’ve just created a thought-provoking, awe-inspiring and call-to-action-laden piece of content.  ROI and back-pats, here we come.  But then you let it sit there.  Few people read it, nobody shares it and you’re the only one who tweets it.  What happened?  By rights, creating content that reaches the audiences we want to reach, grabs their attention and causes them to react in a positive way should be second nature for PR professionals and marketers; it’s what we’ve been trained do.  But the demand from news consumers for content that is truly useful, interesting and engaging is so great, and the need for it to be portable and customizable is so ever-present, our jobs are not always so easy.  (more…)