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Live From #SXSW: How to get the social media budget you need

2 min read

Social Media

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Jaime Punishill and Greg Matthews used their presentation to address a challenge that many social media teams face everyday: how to get the resources you need to use social media effectively.

Research has shown that many companies are adopting social media, but the actual investment and budget allocated is minimal. While many of the platforms are free, Punishill pointed out that the human cost of using them is far from it. Once you’ve convinced senior executives of social media’s potential, you must develop and advocate for an appropriate budget to power it.

Punishill and Matthews’ top tips for getting social media resources:

  • Find the right project. Find the project that matters to your company. For Citigroup or Comcast, that meant customer service. By finding a key project and demonstrating results, you can move beyond social media’s “soft metrics.”
  • Speak the right language. When making your business case, you need to speak the language of your stakeholder. Use context to find relevant metrics of profit and loss to demonstrate necessary investments to maximize success. Provide context and use examples.
  • Do your homework. Think ahead about the red flags that might get in the way. Know significant regulations that affect your industry and internal sensitivities. Watch and take note of your competitors.
  • Leverage small wins. When you’ve made your case and achieved a reasonable ROI, weave that into your bigger plan. How can you scale your small successes when given the resources to expand? Come with solid recommendations, and remember that you always need to play two roles: educator and advocate.

Have you done this at your company? What challenges have you faced?