Selling Social Media to Senior Management

Micah LaneyDigital Communications, Walmart

Who is this guy?

• I work at Walmart

•On the Global Associate Communications Team

•As part of the Digital Strategy Team

•The result: A techie on a comms team in a retail company

What have you done?

•3rd iteration of the extranet, walmartone.com, launched last month

•More than 1 million employees are registered and visiting every month

•Everything in this presentation, three times

Part 1: What you see

•More social, more fun, more collaboration means it’s more better

• Increased communication and productivity

•Happy employees and clients

•Puppy dogs and rainbows

Part 2: What they see

•Risk, expenses and loss of control

•Worst case scenarios

•General doom and gloom

Part 3: The goal

•Communicate what you want

•Understand what they want

•Move from “you” to “us”

Part 4: What it takes

•Storytelling

• In-depth planning and analysis

•Partnership

Then we’re done

•Cool?

•But first...

Part 1: What you see

• It’s awesome

•Everyone is doing it

•Seriously, it’s awesome

Games

• Improved engagement because people want to participate

• It’s sticky, because people want to win

My Sustainability Plan

•The idea:Let’s get employees to engage in a wellness program

•The how:Make it fun! Make it a website! Make it a fun website!

Collaboration

• Ideas all over the place

•The best will organically bubble up to the top

•The customer is invested

Dub the Dew

•The idea: Let’s get more customers engaged with our brand

•The how:Let customers vote on the name of the new flavor of Dew!

Local Conversations

•They are already happening, with or without you

•You now get to participate in a way that matters

•Not as a faceless evil, but as a part of the community

Like your local Walmart

•The idea:Let’s get more customers to engage with our brand

•The how:Bring in a celebrity and let customers vote!

Part 2: What they see

•Things that could will go wrong

•The results of that wrong

•How you will ruin everything

My Sustainability Plan

•The idea:Let’s get employees to engage in a wellness program

•The how:Make it fun! Make it a website! Make it a fun website!

•The mistake:It’s on the internet

Dub the Dew

•The idea: Let’s get more customers engaged with our brand

•The how:Let customers vote on the name of the new flavor of Dew!

•The mistake:It’s on the internet

Like your local Walmart

•The idea:Let’s get more customers to engage with our brand on a local level

•The how:Bring in a celebrity and let customers vote!

•The mistake:It’s on the internet

Part 3: The goal

•Build a partnership with your leadership

•Build a partnership with your legal and privacy teams

Your job

• Identify risks before anyone else

•Be your own nemesis

•Have proactive and reactive plans

It’s going to be a disaster

•Build a worst case scenario survival handbook

•Document impact vs. likelihood

http://www.altimetergroup.com/research/reports/social-media-risk-management

Protocols and reviews

•This is boring

•This is 100% crucial

•You must have a plan for governance (prevention)

•You must have a plan for disaster (recovery)

•You must review this plan regularly (because things change)

Something will go wrong

•Be ok with that, by being ready

•How many typos are in this presentation?

Sell the story

•Make it positive

•Make it personal

•Make it personalized

Share the risk

•What’s going to happen

•What we’re going to do about it

•How they are going to help

Shoot skeet

•Review the risk matrix

•Review protocols and policies

•Adjust

My Sustainability Plan

•The idea:Let’s get employees to engage in a wellness program

•The how:Make it fun! Make it a website! Make it a fun website!

•The mistake:It’s on the internet

•The recovery:Keep it simple, know what you’re up against

Dub the Dew

•The idea: Let’s get more customers engaged with our brand

•The how:Let customers vote on the name of the new flavor of Dew!

•The mistake:It’s on the internet

•The recovery:None. Dead.

Like your local Walmart•The idea:

Let’s get more customers to engage with our brand

•The how:Bring in a celebrity and let customers vote!

•The mistake:It’s on the internet

•The recoveryRoll with it

Part 4: What it takes

•Storytelling

•Partnership

•Openness

•Research

•Planning

•Analysis

Part last:

•Other resources:

•Guarding the Social Gateshttp://www.altimetergroup.com/research/reports/social-media-risk-management

•Facebook Storieshttp://www.facebookstories.com/

•27 Things to Knowhttp://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/12118.aspx

Questions?Micah Laney

micah.laney@wal-mart.com@micahlaney

Thank you.