Took the Southwest shuttle from Orange County to San Jose in Silicon Valley today and met with some marketing executives at a major B2B company. It was educational for me to hear first-hand accounts from marketers about their struggles selling social media initiatives to non-marketing executives. Without strong companywide support, the social media efforts undertaken, however well-intentioned, may not even get a fair shot at being successful as they tend to be understaffed and underfunded. Even the projects that do get some traction on social media can suffer from not get the recognition they deserve due to a general lack of appreciation of the power of social media. Continuing to provide some good examples could perhaps convince them over time. However, it would clearly be ideal should they have the very senior management’s blessing. A great way of demonstrating such support would be if the CEO would jump on board and started tweeting or blogging, wouldn’t it?
About Niklas Myhr
Niklas Myhr, PhD, CSP, The Social Media Professor, is an international TEDx and keynote speaker serving as an advisor to HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco. Dr. Myhr is a CSP® (Certified Speaking Professional™) and a Certified Virtual Presenter offering keynote presentations, talks, workshops, and executive education programs at conferences, businesses, public sector organizations, and universities. Dr. Myhr has spoken in Europe, in the United States, and in Asia, and his expertise on social media and digital marketing has been featured in BBC, The Washington Post, ABC, CBS, and NBC. Dr. Myhr is Google’s #1-ranked “Social Media Professor," and he teaches at Chapman University in California. Niklas Myhr holds a Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Virginia, and an MS from Linköping University in Sweden.