It’s 2012, does your boss still think Social Media is a fad?  It has never been more urgent to convince him or her otherwise; because the longer you wait the more catching up you’ll have to do.  According to research by Ad-ology:

Just ten percent [small businesses] say they will not use social media in 2012, down from 24 percent for 2011 and 39 percent for 2010.

This is in line with other studies and surveys.  An email provider, Constant Contact, surveyed nearly 2000 small businesses. In their  Fall 2011 Attitudes and Outlooks Survey, they reported that:

Small businesses are using social media marketing more than ever before; of those surveyed, 81% report using social media marketing, up from 73% in Spring 2011

These studies indicate a significant shift to digital as many more decision-makers and business owners embrace social media and mobile.  So, how do you convince your boss to embrace the social media?

Show the Case Studies

Find a handful of case studies of companies using Social Media successfully.  ’Successful’ use of social media could mean many different things to different people.  Some are only interested in ROI, some will care only about how active the audience is, and others will only think about how Social Media is helping their SEO strategy.  Whatever the case may be, find case studies that fall in line as closely as possible to what your boss cares about.  Look for cases studies that can relate to your company as well.  Size, geography, industry, and so on.  Your boss will need to relate to them.

Keep an Eye on the Competition

If you need to, present a case study of your top competitor.  If your competitors are using social media to dominate the online networks, show your boss what they are doing and how they are doing it.

Show the Data

There’s an abundance of online resources, research, studies and surveys that illustrate how social media is increasingly being integrated into our daily lives.  There are studies focused on SMB’s as well as on the users themselves.  Look for studies that represent your customer base.  Not only show how many of your customers are using social media, but also how they are using it.  Are they spending more time on Twitter or Facebook?  Do they turn to social media for purchase advice? And so on.  Make your boss see the light by focusing on how this data changes over time.

Use Real-Time Examples

Let’s say your company sells organic toothpaste.  Perform a search on Twitter using Tweetdeck (or a similar app) to pull live search results.  As you can see there are a lot of people talking about toothpaste, but no one is talking about your 100% certified organic toothpaste.  Wouldn’t you want to join the conversation or even lead it?  Wouldn’t you want to educate your potential customers about your toothpaste?  Wouldn’t you want to create compelling content that drives traffic to you?  There are a number of approaches you can take here.  I’m just tossing out some ideas.  Show examples of companies delivering live customer service, take a look at @Mailchimp or @Freshbooks.  You can even go ahead with personal examples that you feel have the potential to illustrate the effectiveness of Social Media.  Maybe your network responded to your request asking for restaurant suggestions or you grew your mailing list by 10 fold by creating compelling content?

Bring In the Experts

Still trying to convince your boss?  Try bringing in some industry experts.  If the budget doesn’t allow for a professional speaker, there are a number of firms that specialize in online marketing and social media.  Bring in these experts, for lunch and learn or even for a sales pitch.  Don’t be threatened.  The experts will only add credibility to what you’ve been trying to pioneer in your company.  Sometimes it just takes an outside voice to nudge the scales in your favour.

Show the Results

Last but not least, show the results.  Maybe you got the green-light to run a pilot project, or just been moonlighting on your own.  You need to be able to show your boss some kind of tangible results.  Maybe you generated additional leads at lower cost, perhaps you built a mailing list, or pushed your company to the top of Google’s search results?  Whatever it is, you need to prove that it works.