Do your CEO and his closest crew say no to internal social media? What’s the reason? Well, it sounds differently in different corporations or depending on who you speak to, but a common answer when management don’t want to engage is this:

“We don’t want people to throw away valuable work hours by chatting, irrelevant status up-dating and God-knows-what non work related stuff. And, by the way, social media is probably just a passing fad. So, just let us ignore it.”

Ok, who can (or dare) argue? In a way it’s true: Only God-knows-what will happen. It can, as Cinderella says, be frightfully dull, and-and-and boring, and-and completely… (and here it comes): Completely wonderful.

What Would Cinderella Do?

If you want that internal social media-thing to happen in your company, your mission is to bring top management some magic.

Often, negative responses to social media are due to lack of understanding. If you are a social media native, tweeting and blogging through life, meeting hundreds or thousands or even millions of people online every day, it’s hard to believe that there are people out there, some of them your co-workers, who still google things they don’t know instead of tweeting out their questions, people who haven’t heard about Klout or Kred score, and people who actually think that having a Facebook account is so fresh that it almost make them pioneers in the social media landscape.

Believe it or not, but those people are still out there, in a place near you. And they are often called top management. Deal with it. See it as a challenge. Make it your mission to give them a Cinderella moment. I’ll show you how:

1. Make Them Believe in Magic

Just like Cinderella and her little friends are making a new dress out of an old one, you are going to reconstruct the top management’s old view and show them  a completely different side of the story. It’s going to make them believe in magic.

Breaking down the top management rejection is your starting point.  “We don’t want people to throw away valuable work hours”, they say. There we go, starting with a tough one.

Access to internal social media will take time from something else, that’s correct. But, what if it takes time from the time spent looking for answers to a work related question or time from not knowing whom to contact in a certain matter? What if it takes time from something that is slowing down work today? Wouldn’t that be great? Actually, research has found that internal social media make the work place more efficient. When an employee needs an answer, he or she can throw it out to other employees and instantly get a reply from the person who knows the answer. Very neat, isn’t it?

2. Educate the Bookless Stepsisters

What about chatting and irrelevant status up-dating along with the God-knows-what non work related stuff?

Well, go for research again. Forbes.com writes about an academic study by an associate professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business and two colleagues from Carnegie Mellon, who followed the internal blog posts of 2,396 employees in a large company during a period of 15 months. Along with sharing information about work tasks, they found that blogging at work pulls employees closer to one another, builds relationships, and over time, increases productivity.

In brief, their conclusion was when the company imposed rules prohibiting workers from writing about their non-work interests, work postings dropped. When the company allowed workers to post freely, blogging and reading went up and employees exchanged more information about both work and play. (Read more about the study by clicking on the Forbes-link above).

3. Outsmart the Evil Stepmother

Convinced your top management yet? Probably not. It will take some more effort from your side. They still think of social media as a fad, don’t they? What to say about that… There were some people thinking Internet being a fad too, and look where we are today!

Mark Evans from Sysomos.com, a social media monitoring company, gives response to speech in their blog. Quote him to puncture the claim that social media is a fad. He says it very good:

“Social media may soon lose its sex appeal but only because it will no longer be new. Instead, social media will become part of the communications, marketing and sales landscape. /…/ So when you think about it, social media is a fad but it’s a fad that will fade into the background to become a key and established medium.”

Who can say no to using an established medium? If your company is not in the forefront, then it should at least not fall behind. Admittedly, to insinuate that the top management let the company fall behind may not be the best argument to win them over to your side, but you should still present the facts. Hopefully it will bring out the competitive persons in them.

4. Let the Fairy Godmother Swing Her Magic Wand

Now, what else can you do? I guess you (or the fairy godmother) have to swing your wand a little bit more to really bring the magic. Being top management, they probably are people who like facts and figures. Well, let’s give it to them! Here we go:

Gagen MacDonald and APCO Worldwide recently launched this infographic showing the benefits of internal social media (ISM) to a company and its employees. Facts like these are like a magic spell to top management. They’ll love it!

5. Get Ready for the Ball

Well done! I cross my fingers and wish that this kind of magic works on your top management.

Let’s really hope it will take you all the way to the social media ball. Don’t lose sight of it, because it could be so… Completely wonderful.

Do you use internal social media in your work place? What’s your experience of it? Please tell in the comment box below!

By the way, if you found this post of value, please share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

Image source: Walt Disney Company

About the author

Anna Rydne is a communications specialist, a mother and a small business owner. Based in Stockholm, Sweden, she's determined to uncover the secrets of how successful people and companies communicate. Anna has a special interest in social media marketing and personal branding and she believes the road to success is trying. She tweets about all things comms, social media and marketing @CoSkills and writes for SteamFeed.com twice a month. She holds a bachelor's degree in psychology. Contact her at anna@communicateskills.com.

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