Presentation on April 28, 2009 in San Francisco at the Inbound Marketing Summit. It's so obvious what you need to do -- the audience is there, you've got the technology lined up, and a vision of the utopia that your social strategy is going to create. The only problem: the curmudgeon in the corner office. S/he just doesn't get it! This session will examine the typical objections to a social media strategy, layout a process to follow to address those objections, and provide best practices to turn that curmudgeon into your greatest advocate.

1. Convincing The Curmudgeon
Charlene Li
Altimeter Group
April 28, 2009

2. Meet your curmudgeon
“It’s a fad and
waste of time.”
“There’s no ROI.”
“It’s way too
risky.”
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3. Your curmudgeon can’t tell these apart
3 Source: Wordle.net

4. “It’s a fad and waste of time.”
 Make it real for them.
• Identify an area of passion.
• Connect with old friends.
• Showcase conversations with real
customers, that teaches them something they
didn’t know.
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5. Pair different social media mindsets
Fearful Cautious Realist Transparent
Skeptic Tester Optimist Evangelist
Find the “moments of truth” and
“moments of crisis” for each mindset
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6. Examples of Realist Optimists
Lionel Menchaca Paula Drum Ed Terpening
Dell H&R Block Wells Fargo
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7. “There’s no ROI.”
 Tie it to strategy and goals
What will you do?
What won’t you do?
With limited time
and resources
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8. Focus on relationships, not technologies
What kind of relationship do you want?
Transactional Passionate
Occasional Constant
Impersonal Intimate
Short-term Loyal
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9. Tie technologies to the goals
Dialog
Learn Help
Innovate
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10. Measure the right things
Your goals
determine your
metrics
Use the same
metrics as your
corporate goals
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11. Example “micro” metrics
Goal Metric Value
Learn # of customer Impact of faster,
feedback better insights
Dialog # of comments Brand loyalty
# of referrals Faster, more closes
# of sales
Help # of issues addressed Employee satisfaction
Innovate # of implemented Faster development
ideas
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12. Higher order metrics to consider
Net Promoter Score
How likely are you to
recommend this to someone
you know?
Lifetime Value
Lifetime revenue
Cost of acquisition
Cost of retention
Customer referral value (CRV)
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13. “It’s way too risky.”
Embrace and prepare for failure
Identify the top 5-10 worst
case scenarios.
Develop mitigation and
contingency plans.
Prepare everyone for the
inevitable failures.
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14. Wal-mart failed many, many times
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15. Buyer blog hit the right note
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16. Photo: Kantor, http://www.flickr.com/photos/kantor
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17. Thank You
Charlene Li
Altimeter Group
charlene@altimetergroup.com
blog.altimetergroup.com
Twitter: @charleneli
Slides available at slideshare.net/charleneli
17 Copyright © 2009 Altimeter Group