Although many companies are taking advantage of social media to help solve pressing business drivers, some companies still see many barriers to adopting social media or web 2.0. Three of the biggest barriers are:
1. The lack of Senior Management support
Without Senior management support and buy in it’s difficult to have any budget allocated to Social Media initiatives. While most of the tools are free, the internal staff required for successful campaigns are not. Most companies will need to contract required skill sets.
There’s also a time allocation to factor in. Multiply this across the company and you have a considerable resource issue.
Research into Web 2.0 in larger companies shows that, where it is being adopted with favourable outcomes, the whole organization is fully engaged not just marketing.
2. Lack of a proven business case
“How do I know it will work?” “How will it help me meet my targets?” How will it impact bottom-line or top-line revenue?” “What’s the business case?”
These are basic questions any Senior Executive or budget controller is going to ask. They should be expected. In most companies you need a business case for changing the office furniture, moving to a new location or investing dollars in a new technology system or using a new supplier.
Social Media is no different, yet in many cases executives are asked not to focus on the numbers, just on the importance of cultivating relationships. That’s unlikely to wash. Numbers – or at least some assumptions of how integration of social media will contribute to the bottom line are important. And executives like people who talk in terms of financials… it shows their understanding of how these numbers will impact the company’s success.
This is where Social Media practitioners need be prepared. It’s quite possible that dollars can be diverted from existing media and marketing budgets to social media, however marketers still need to make a case to get those dollars – and an expectation of what kind of results should be expected. And while the place to begin may be marketing, budget and support must come from the top.
3. Lack of a set of best practices
Social Media is still evolving. Which means that any best practices are also evolving.
Right now everyone is still trying it out and, other than it being a definite shift in engagement, so far there are no rules.
Take blogging for example. Depending on the type of company it may want to put restrictions on an external blog to reduce the risk of negative comment or feedback. Doing this however can limit the benefits of blogging – that of diverse comment and feedback – good and bad.
Or take Twitter. A great tool for microblogging…Twitter has no rules. Also:
- What works for one company may not necessarily work for another.
- When it comes down to it the company strategy will determine what tool is appropriate.
- Some companies do not allow their staff to use any form of social networking within or outside the company because of strict regulations (banks and pharmaceuticals for example), while others are less restrictive.
There is also a big difference between being using social media personally vs using it for business, and the larger the business, the more potential stakeholders – and risks to be considered.
Best in class companies, are leading the way. They are using Social Media internally and externally, and developing processes, systems and measurements, and integrating with their existing technologies so that it transforms their organization into a group of people working towards common goals rather than a corporation.
Perhaps it’s from these that formal best practices might emerge. However every company is different and simple emulation of another company is unlikely to be a solution.
What’s your take? How can companies overcome these barriers? What can Social Media practitioners do to help companies wanting to overcome these barriers? What do companies need to from service providers?
