Getting Companies to Buy the "Social Idea"

What An Exciting Time! My company Brandswag had it’s 2009 Planning Meeting this weekend at our offices in Indianapolis. It was fun to have everyone together to talk about growing the business. One of the topics of conversation was the process of selling social media marketing to corporate America. Another way to look at it: How do you sell the idea of “viral/echo” marketing to companies between $10-$150 million?

Amazingly Seth Godin had a blog post recently called Selling Ideas to a Big Company. Seth always seems to save the day when I am debating something important like social media marketing to corporate America. In the post Seth talks about two things you HAVE to HAVE in order to sell an idea to BIG business.

1. They have to be in the business of buying ideas.

2. They have to trust you.

If there was one thing I took from the post it was the fact that…“if you have an idea for a company that doesn’t know how to buy it, move on. And if you want to be in the business of selling ideas, find an industry that has experience buying those ideas.”

The top two reasons are not debatable when it comes to selling social media to corporate America. They have to believe in the concept of social media marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy. They also have to trust you as a social media advocate or “trust agent.” (You can hit me later for using coined terms)

You cannot force the idea of adding in social strategy to an overall marketing plan. If you have to CONVINCE someone to use social media….

they will not.

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