The days when businesses could ignore social media are over. Smartphones and the ubiquitous social media networks associated with them have shortened the distances between individuals and the brands and organizations they come across every day. Even though C-suites now know they need to be on social, many ROI-focused executives still don’t see the value.
One of the clichés behind this dichotomy of opinion is the left-brain, right-brain split that conventionally divides creative from more analytical professionals. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Kevin Kautzky, comms group manager, and Greg Kunkel, program manager, both with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, brought the two distinct thought processes together for PR News’ Digital PR & Marketing attendees on June 7 in Miami.
Realizing the need for communicators to translate the wins they orchestrate to executives, the pair offered tips and tricks to help PR pros from any industry and any organization size use business thinking to plan, execute and communicate their activities up the ladder.
Here are four tips to put more business thinking behind social media efforts:
- Find victories that resonate with leadership: Some of your leaders will get it more than others. Find out what success stories resonate with the more in-touch executives and promote them internally. Remember that testimonials and anecdotes from leaders in the organization are also data. Take these into account while you're evaluating your work to know what helps increase the understanding of the impact of social.
- Find tools that you’ll actually use: There are so many different measuring and tracking tools out there at price points all over the spectrum. Do your research and only spend your limited time and money on the tools that prove the most value to your organization.
- Understand and work through pain points: When one piece of content does better than another, explore the reasons behind each piece's reception. Content that works with your audience may not make your employees very happy—especially if, as in the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's case, employees feel you're downplaying serious work on social. Explain your reasoning and show how your efforts helped in the long run.
- Bake measurement into everything: Executives love numbers and if you can show how the bottom line changed over the course of a campaign, they'll be sure to become true believers.
Follow Mark: @MarkRenfree