By nature, many B2B organizations are pretty darn conservative. Trying new things, experimenting and sharing opinions publicly sometimes aren’t high on the priority list for these organizations. So, it can be challenging to get upper management–or any level of management, for that matter–to buy in to social concepts and approaches.

But, just because you run into a roadblock, doesn’t mean the journey is over. Try a redirect.

If you run into a wall with legal, compliance or IT, try redirecting your efforts to a different part of the organization to get things off the ground. Remember, early on, it’s all about quick wins and demonstrating the business value of these tools. To do that, sometimes you need to find a different avenue.

So, if you’re continually butting your head against the wall, try redirecting and channeling your thoughts and energy toward one of the following areas:

Employee communications. Internal communicators face several challenges. Building pride among employees. Aligning staff with key organizational priorities and strategies. And fostering innovation and collaboration. Social media “behind the firewall” can help with all three. Plus, social tools present tremendous value to organizations with remote or geographically dispersed workforces. By giving staff the chance to connect, converse and share ideas across locations, you’re starting to harness the brainpower of ALL your employees. Just ask IBM. And, typically, using social media internally is more of a “low risk” proposition than using it out in the public eye.

Community events/sponsorships. Another lower-risk opportunity might be to activate your brand socially at a community or sponsored event. Maybe your IT consulting firm is the title sponsor of a local walk to support children’s cancer research. Why not encourage walk participants to use a branded hash tag if they tweet during the walk? After all, they’re walking, not running, right? Or, set up a “photo booth” at the end of the race, take pictures of participants and set up computers and encourage folks to upload the photos directly to their Facebook pages. There are simple steps you can usually take to active your brand at events like these without taking a huge amount of risk.

The recruiting front. OK, so maybe most organizations aren’t looking for talent right now, but they’d be wise to prepare for the next few years when boomers will start exiting the workforce. In many industries, social tools represent an ideal way to reach and communicate with the younger, millennial and Gen Y generations. Going this route may give you the opportunity to establish a corporate presence on one of the table-stakes social networks, like Facebook. Remember, we’re talking baby steps here. Set up the account. Create a plan for what kind of content you’ll share and how you’ll build this community. Then, create momentum, and “sell” those wins internally. Down the road, it will make those tough conversations with legal, compliance and IT a little easier.

Do you know the name of the person who manages your information security (InfoSec)? If not, you may want to take some time to get to know them before building your case with legal to launch a social media initiative.

One of the consistent questions asked of me in applying social media at CME Group is on the topic of getting legal support. I’ve addressed this in several speeches and continue to talk with people about building a case when asked. Recently, I have begun to point out that getting legal buy-in really starts with having a key ally on your side — in my case it was our information security team. Let me explain.

When it comes to any type of communication online – Twitter, Facebook, email, bit.ly — security risks exist. Take a look at this story from today’s InformationWeek at the latest news on security and social media. And after working in the information security industry a few years I was able to have a unique point of view on these threats when I met with InfoSec.

With the support of information security to pursue social media, I was able to bring a strong reference to the discussion with our legal and disclosure committee. In essence, I had laid out my argument with a team that resisted at first, but after meeting their criteria they became (and remain) supportive. In addition, I was able to build a stronger relationship with IT as we continue to look for ways to enhance our online presence.

Here’s how I addressed the challenge with information security as we became more proactive in social media in financial services back in 2007.

• Talk the talk. As someone genuinely interested in technology, but not an engineer, I often like to say I speak geek. For me to be able to talk to our information security team in their jargon helped in the initial discussions. Before meeting with InfoSec you should have a firm grasp of the risks that exist and that you understand this issues of spam, torjan horses, viruses, etc.
• Have a business case. Doing social media for the sake of social media is not a plan, and you will likely be at odds with the InfoSec team (among others). As you look to promote your brand they look to protect it. Come prepared and be ready for some tough questions about why you need the resources you’re requesting. This discussion can help you develop your case to other audiences.
• List your resources. Don’t come to the meeting without a list of what you need, and don’t just show up to a meeting with a list of resources expecting a rubber stamp of approval. Since every application comes with a risk make sure you have at least two business reasons for choosing that technology and that you realize the potential risks from its use. You will also need to show how you will protect against any security miscues (e.g., only clicking on links from trusted sources).
• Stay on top of the news. During the process of talking with InfoSec it was helpful to also send them news and information about risks that were occurring. The fact that I was able to identify the risks that were occurring and that I was trying to actively protect the exchange helped build confidence with the team.
• Bring examples. Resistance to allow the use of certain technologies may be more difficult than others, so come prepared with real world examples of companies that use it. If they see that competitors in your industry or other blue chip companies are already deploying the technology you will help them see that it can be achieved.

The lessons learned here were two-fold.

First, play to your strengths. In this case it was my experience in information security. You should know where your strengths are — investor relations, sales & marketing, risk management -  in order to build an ally for your efforts.

Second, understand your internal network of influence. Having allies, while never a guarantee, helps to garner support. As we discussed social media with our legal team I was able to immediately eliminate one key obstacle — information security — while demonstrating that others supported the effort.

If you want to continue to pursue this topic another resource for you is the online Twitter discussion Behind the Firewall started by Arik Hanson (@ArikHanson) and Rick Mahn (@RickMahn). Simply search Twitter for #btf to follow the topics related to this blog post.

As always, good luck and share your thoughts/experiences below or on Twitter at #btf.

The supreme court has decided recently to review arguments for corporate funding of political candidates in advertisements. If you are in public relations and are unaware of this you need to catch up. Here are some reasons why:

Messaging: In a new world of  more government involvement combined with being hyper connected we may need to revisit what we say. Not only will you potentially need to revisit your messages, but you will need to address how you distribute them and respond to inquiries. Politics can be a heavily confrontational environment, so if companies are allowed to be more vocal about who they support with advertising we will be expected to be more involved in the public debate. Are you ready to start today? Do you know the issues and candidates your company supports?

Public defense: A change in policy will affect how you position your company’s leaders and its position in the marketplace.  For those of us doing B2B communications we may be entering an entirely new world of having to work with consumers and consumer groups. So what do you have in place to defend your public choices? Will it be social media? Traditional media? Are you ready to support your company’s decision?

Define “advertising”: What really constitutes advertising in today’s heavily leveraged world of social media? While we understand the traditional full-page advertisement in Roll Call or the WSJ, what about a sponsored Twitter account? Or a paid-for blog? Or YouTube videos? In addition, we all know that issues and political advertising usually requires input from the team in public relations, so you will likely need to step in and help manage. We could also be approaching more cases like Nike v. Kasky – which by the way was settled out of court. Could things change based on another case? Are you ready with adding to the internal conversation?

Ethics: When it comes to ethics we need to answer to four audiences: 1) our organization/client 2) our publics 3) our self, and 4) the public relations profession. With a change in campaign finance looming, support of candidates by our company/clients can either be easy (you support the funding/campaign) or difficult (you oppose the funding/campaign). I can see a growing debate on ethics in the near term if the changes happen. Are you ready for the debate?

I’ll be following this news with interest and hopefully you will now too.  Let me know your thoughts on the issue and if there’s anything else that needs to be considered.

This post is dedicated to the letter “I”.

At some point, we have all been asked about the ROI of public relations (no, clip counting and ad value equivalency tools are not what I mean). How do we define the value of our programs? Can we and should we measure revenue generated?  Are our messages resonating with our target audiences and how do we know? These are ongoing questions and remain important topics of discussion and debate for anyone in the communications profession. For more information on the topic I continue to read Metrics Man, KD Paine’s Measurement Blog, and Measurement PR-spectives.

Focusing just on measuring social media, since that remains the shiny object for most of us, ROI is an important question to address, especially since almost every tool is free (not much “investment”). We certainly do not just use social media at CME Group because it is free, and I have been addressing what the exchange gets out of social media more as interest in its use in financial services grows.

Here are some thoughts I have provided recently when discussing the return we get from using Web 2.0. 

Intelligence — Many tools today allow you to really get under the hood and find out a lot about your customers and competitors. Whether it is a key word search on Technorati, hashtag on Twitter or comments to a fan page on Facebook, you can learn a lot about what is on the mind of your audiences. The ability now to follow trends or sentiment from real people in real time has become one advantage of social media.

Influence — The concept of communicating your ideas and building advocacy is nothing new to the profession. We continue to to pursue ways to measure and show that we are moving the needle, and I continue to be amazed at the amount of new (free and paid) tools available (Social Radar, PR Newswire and Twinfluence to name a few I have used).  Just as measurement tools for traditional media relations have evolved to improve our targeting of messages, I am amazed at the depth of some of the new ways to gauge influence in social media.

Integrity — I first heard this from Charee Klimek (@ChareeKlimek) who brought this up at last month’s Chicago Social Media Club Breakfast. As she pointed out, social media today provides another opportunity for people and organizations to be transparent. Through a dialogue in the public stream we can engage, answer questions, clarify information and monitor our actual conversations.

Integration — This can be simple. There are tools out there that help integrate social media to make it more meaningful. Just watch this video of measurement practitioner Katie Paine (@KatieDPaine) and her idea about Google Analytics (it works and will give you some interesting results). I also believe we need to look at how we can integrate our social media evaluation with our traditional media relations evaluation in order to give a bigger picture of what we are doing.

Intimacy — Tools like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter now give us more ways to connect with people but sometimes only online. Building these relationships into real world connections actually helps solidify stronger bonds and gives us an opportunity to further build advocates online and offline.  

I know I am only scratching the surface on this topic so I want to hear your thoughts. What do you think of ROI in social media? Are the tools useful or useless? What do you use to showcase your efforts? How are you integrating social media measurement with other forms of measurement? Do the ideas above resonate with what you are doing? What’s missing in my discussion?