Today, I was asked to present to the American Marketing Association’s Toronto chapter on Overcoming Social Media Obstacles in Financial Services. With a title like that, my focus was on helping the marketers in the room convince their executives to fund and resource the social media plan – what will make executives say “no” and how can you integrate executives into the planning phase to ensure the necessary funding? This presentation was really tuned into the process of getting a plan approved, not the components of a social media plan which meant I had to presume everyone in the room had an awesome socially creative plan or campaign that they wanted to execute.
In the Q&A, most of the discussion focused on working with specific internal stakeholders, compliance and legal being the main two marketers had concerns with. My response was simple – bring these influencers into the process early on and work through any potential or perceived issues with them at the table. A robust scenario planning exercise will also enable internal groups to become more comfortable with this emerging channel. Interestingly enough, while I was at the podium, Frank Eliason, Citigroup’s social media lead was telling an audience that “using regulatory concerns as an excuse to not embrace social media is a “crutch”.
