I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that many of the executives I’ve met just don’t get the whole social media thing.  Their concerns range from fear of the unknown, to discomfort with potential and current customers being a little too candid, to hesitation with creating something whose ROI they can’t measure in the typical black and white manner.

I don’t know if this is a typical attitude for Generation-X’ers, but in the midst of a tumbling world economy and a transformation from old forms of advertising to new, social media is more important than ever.  And it might just be you who needs to prove that to your bosses.

Have specific goals in mind.

You have used integrated marketing campaigns in the past; what were you trying to achieve with those?  Do you want to simply increase web site traffic?  Do you want more conversions on your web site?  Do you want your name to show up in major online publications?  Figure out what you want to achieve, and plan accordingly.  Then show the boss your ideas.

Be one step ahead of your boss.

I was recently asked about the potential for a blog on our web site, which is based in Java and therefore is not compatible with standard installations of Wordpress, for example.  Instead, I had chatted with a colleague earlier to find out about open source, Java-based blogging platforms, and was quick to bring up Roller as an option for us.  By having an option already in your back pocket prior to speaking with your boss, you save your boss from hemming and hawing about how your company “wouldn’t know where to begin,” thus delaying things further.

Stress the low cost.

I’m not saying that social media is free.  One must consider the fact that social media marketing, if done right, can be extremely time consuming – and in this day and age, time is money.  But many bosses are more concerned with specific dollar amounts, which is where social media really shines.  As far as finance is concerned, if you aren’t spending large amounts of money, you’re doing a fine job.  And in this poor economy, not spending money is going to sound pretty darn good to your superiors.

Give real-life examples of how social media has worked for other companies.

You know the value of social media for business; otherwise this wouldn’t be an issue for you at all.  But you can’t very well expect to convince anyone of the many merits of using social media as a marketing tool if you have nothing to back it up.  If you’re in the food industry, cite Coca-Cola’s use of Mentos in YouTube videos to send its sales of Diet Coke skyrocketing.  If you’re in the Internet services industry, refer to HubSpot’s fast-paced growth over the last year thanks to its blogs, webcasts, and “Grader” toolset.  Dell has an entire island dedicated to its products on Second Life, and Starbucks has both Facebook and Twitter pages to connect with its community.  It is important that your boss sees success stories with regard to companies in your particular sector or industry to further bolster your arguments.

Prove it.

Especially if you work in a small company, there is no harm in doing some small-scale experiments to prove to your boss that social media marketing really can work.  If you don’t have a PR team or communications pro that is accustomed to doing so, take it upon yourself to respond to blog posts about your company.  Digg or Stumble articles that reflect your company favorably.  Start a Twitter account that allows you to deliver and intermix objective articles about your industry while slipping in an invitation to a company webcast here and there, for example.  Once you have something going, something solid, you’ll have a lot more pull when you finally talk to your boss.

For those of you who do use social media marketing in your company, and were the champions of such an act, how did you sell the idea to your boss?  Did you address his fears (consumers with not-so-flattering things to say about your company), or did you focus on his practical side (cutting costs)?

Special thanks to @RichBecker, @ChristySeason, and @candyhog for their feedback!

• Building the Social Media Marketing Foundation
• Should My Company Join the Social Media Revolution?
• Social Media and the Marketing Opportunity

I opened the new issue of Wired today to an article, the title of which caught my attention immediately:

Kill Your Blog

The author, Paul Boutin, seems to be under the impression that blogs are, well, so 2004.  Now, apparently, “the blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge.”

One could see this as true.  He references Technorati’s list of the top 100 blogs, all of which are corporate and/or professional blogs making a tidy yearly sum from advertising.  The era of personal, one-writer blogs may appear to have been pushed aside in favor of blogs that have multi-person staffs working twenty-four hours a day to deliver the most valuable content to their readers.

But to be completely honest, I’m not convinced.  I rarely visit the sites that have 5+ posts per day.  Why?  For one thing, I just don’t have the time to keep up with all of it.  Who with a full-time job and a personal life does?  Additionally, the information provided seems less valuable to me than that in single-person shops.  Some of the biggest blogs in the world spit out content constantly, making them, essentially, online newspapers.  I can set up Google alerts for the headlines on any particular topic without having to trudge through paragraphs of news.  No, I find much more value in poignant, thought-out posts from individuals who a) know and honor their blog’s focus and b) take the time to research, ponder, and analyze what they are about to present to the world.

For me, as a marketeer and young professional, this is why luminaries such as Chris Brogan, Seth Godin, and Penelope Trunk keep me coming back.  They don’t spew out superficial content, but rather provide information combined with references and anecdotes … the kind of juicy stuff you don’t get with these money-grabbing assembly lines.

I do not think anyone should go out right now and disband his or her blog.  Ignore your Technorati rank for a second and look inside of your community.  Do you have “regulars,” or people who continue to return to your site?  Are many people subscribed to you via RSS or email?  Is your comments section a haven for discussion, arguments, and debate?  My goal would be to answer all of those questions with a yes. This is the value for me as a blogger.  My aspirations as a blogger – and I realize I’m very, very early in the game here with this particular blog – is not to earn $75,000 per year because of some well-placed advertising.  I’m happy knowing that I give people something to think about, whether they agree with it or not.

Twitter is heralded in the Wired article as being “to 2008 what the blogosphere was to 2004.”  One cannot deny its influence on the Internet and, specifically, the Web 2.0 world as we know it.  From Barack Obama to Britney Spears to Padmasree Warrior, CTO of Cisco, ‘tweeting’ has become a great means of communicating with particular communities because it’s so fast.  It takes a fraction of the time to write a thought that is 140 characters versus putting together four or five paragraphs for a blog post.  I love Twitter.  I think it’s a brilliant tool to connect with one’s community as well as to follow others who provide you with ideas that you find useful.

But it won’t stop me from reading blogs, and I don’t think it will render blogs obsolete.  As much as people say that information-gathering needs to be quicker and briefer to compliment the fast-past life in which we all live, someone will always find a need to go a little deeper into a thought, an idea, or a concept – and that’s where these speciality, individual bloggers come in.

Keep it up, guys!  Boutin may not agree with it, but I’m still reading … and if you got this far, apparently you are too.

A number of you – okay, many of you, I’m sure – will say, “I know! I know!” upon reading the title of this post, but the following isn’t necessarily for you.  No, it’s actually for the many people who get to this blog by way of Google searches on phrases such as “social networking advantages,” “social media opportunity,” and “sales in a 2.0 world.”

The big question for many of you is, “I see all of these marketing folks trying to sell the idea of social media, but where is the proof?  What do the actual consumers have to say about it?”  I’d recommend you take a look at the numbers to get that answer.

Cone Inc., a strategy and communications agency based out of Boston, conducted a survey on perceptions of social media and how it can affect consumers’ buying habits.  According to the survey, sixty percent of Americans use social media, of which 59 percent of these use social media to get in touch with companies.

A whopping 93 percent of social media users believe companies should have some sort of presence on social media outlets, with varying degrees of interaction with their customers.  This interaction can take the form of:

• problem-solving (43%),
• seeking feedback on products or services (41%), and/or
• creating new methods by which consumers can use or interact with the brand (37%).

Likewise, other major research firms are responding to the explosion of social media as a key business tool.  With firms like IDC predicting social media’s growth by 815% in 2009, Forrester Research hits it right on the head by saying, “Rapid consumer adoption of these channels indicates that the time is now to enter this space.”

Has your company begun using social media as a marketing/branding tool?  If you haven’t, what are the causes of your hesitation?

• Social Media for Business – Who’s Doing It Well and How
• Social Media and the Marketing Opportunity
• Building the Social Media Marketing Foundation

Technorati released its State of the Blogosphere report on Monday in a five-part, five-day series that covers everything from the high-level “who is blogging now?” to the nitty gritty of making a living from a blog. Though only the first three sections have been released thus far, there is ample information and data to analyze, from the demographics of bloggers today to the reasons for blogging in the first place.

133 million blog records have been indexed by Technorati since 2002, of which 1.5 million have had posts in the last seven days.  And of these bloggers, the report finds that:

• 70% are college graduates
• 59% have been blogging more than two years
• 40% have an annual household income of $75K or more per year
• 66% are male
• 63% are between the ages of 25 and 44
• 48% are located in North America

Bloggers may also be segmented by category of blogging: personal, professional, or corporate.

I’ve gone through two of the three myself.  In 2000, I started a personal blog which eventually carried right on through college and served as my primary means of keeping in contact with my high school friends.  This year I started my professional blog – yes, you’re looking at it – after ten years of internet marketing experience, the last two of which have been in a corporate setting.  The latter is not much, I agree, but I’m a strong advocate for self-teaching.  And I do intend to venture into the corporate blog setting in the near future.

Other interesting subjects within the State of the Blogosphere report are the reasons for blogging and measuring one’s success.  A whopping 75% of bloggers consider “personal satisfaction” to be a major measure of success, but 82% consider more than one factor in determining how successful he or she is as a blogger, including, but not limited to:

• the number of comments or posts (58%)
• the number of unique visitors (53%)
• the number of links from other sites (46%)
• Technorati authority or rank (33%)

How do I gauge the success of this blog?  Unique visitors is the first thing I check every morning, but that’s more for curiosity’s sake.  I analyze the keywords that people have used to get here in order to determine what page on Google I get for those keywords I’m trying to target.  I also analyze where the visitors have come from – was it a Google search?  Was it from a blog directory like BlogCatalog or MyBlogLog?  Was it from an article that linked back to me?  The more I have from different sites, the happier I am, and the better sense of accomplishment I have.

The State of the Blogosphere report is a great tool both for those just getting into blogging as well as the hardened veterans, and I do recommend you read the sections that are there now as well as the final parts that will appear later today and tomorrow.

• Technorati’s Annual State of the Blogosphere Published
• The Real State of the Blogosphere
• Technorati Numbers Highlight the Changing Nature of Blogging