Resistance is Futile: Why you shouldn’t wait to implement social media into your marketing

Written on September 25, 2007 by admin

Many businesses are afraid to step into the wonderful world of technology and marketing.

This is a shame, because their competitors are indeed moving into this technolosphere. Ironically, it seems that consumers or end users are more embracing of social media and technology when used in marketing than businesses are. Here are some reasons I believe businesses are afraid to adopt new technology in their marketing efforts.

1. Businesses think starting a blog or podcast is harder than it really is. Without real understanding, no decision maker ever wants to take on integration or implementation of a new technology.

2. Executives don’t have time to learn the technology. If they don’t understand it, they won’t advocate it.

3. No one knows whose role it is to implement a blog or podcast. Is it the IT manager’s job? Marketing? Secretary?

4. The benefits aren’t apparent. If it doesn’t net new sales right now, many businesses can’t see the big picture.

So how do you help your business overcome these obstacles and join the growing number of companies who are already using Marketing 2.0?

Dumb it down. Pretend you’re talking to fifth graders. The simpler something is to understand, the more likely a company will adopt it. For instance, to a group of women networkers, I recently described blogs as a source of information. That’s all they needed to know initially. If they won’t be involved in the technical detail, why bog them down with it?

Show them the money. You may understand the tools, as Chris says, but business owners and execs are only interested in the results. Explain in detail the cost savings, increase in brand recognition, growth in sales, whatever it takes to pique their interest.

Prove that implementing the new tool won’t be time or cost-consuming. Blogs are cheap to start, and don’t take too long to get up and running. Explain this, and compare to other marketing strategies that take longer to show reward and are more expensive to implement.

-Susan
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