May 24, 2021
Why isn’t anyone advocating storytelling reporting to your own boardroom?
As we emerge from COVID-19, boardrooms are scrutinising their post-COVID recovery plans. Budgets and ROIs are being assessed to determine if they’re investing in the right areas to deliver the required business impact, at the speed needed. There is an increasing level of cynicism about social media and its impact. Sadly, this is born from an array of incorrect information proliferated by non-social focused agencies playing at social media.
Social Media is a complex arena. At immediate future, all we do day-in, day-out is social media. We’re not distracted by other elements of digital, public relations or traditional marketing. We are laser-focused on the social media channels and understanding how they work. We dedicate extensive time to work with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. It’s critically important in order to understand the array of algorithms that operate at each stage of the customer journey. Without this knowledge, you’re just guessing at what your brand should be creating to bring your audience closer to your brand.
Resulting from so few actually delivering meaningful social media, boardrooms are rightly challenging the what, the how and the why of social media. Does it impact our brand? Where are the proof points? What returns are we getting?
These are all valid questions. If you’re being asked them, this is not an attack on you or the work you’re doing. Boardrooms need the information to determine how they should invest in social media to aid their post-COVID recovery.
Last Friday, I was in the Serious Social Live chair and I approached this very topic. One of the things my colleagues and I do exceptionally well is to work with boardrooms to address tangible business challenges, driving revenue and market share impacting results. We speak the language of boardrooms. We understand their questions and we understand their knowledge gaps. To deliver meaningful boardroom reporting that has the potential to foster greater budget disbursement, and garner additional time support from C-Suite operates, you must incorporate the three Ds: Data, Dialogue, Direction.
Too many people extract data from the channels without detailing what good looks like. Fewer still are using data to define the opportunity for brands, and fewer still are offering observations about what all this means. In short, no one is telling you storytelling is a critically important element of boardroom reporting.
In last week’s Serious Social LIVE, viewable here: Serious Social Live on Facebook – I detail exactly how you live the three D’s and how you shape storytelling for C-Suite. I even offer an example of how you can take the most cynical of CEOs on the journey.
You’ll see an impassioned presentation of this topic. The passion displayed is a result of the frustration I harbour at the many, many people who “play” at Social Media. They don’t deliver meaningful results. They don’t work to take brands on a journey. All they do is further the C-Suite cynicism manifesting itself in industry. If you want to deliver better social media, with truly tangible reports that your boardroom will appreciate, then last week’s Serious Social LIVE was for you!
Incremental Social Media budget spend will happen if you encompass the three Ds and compelling storytelling within your boardroom reporting.