Sure, everyone in the various departments of your company understands the need to connect warmly with customers/clients and potentials, but if your company’s executive leaders don’t understand the power that social media marketing offers, you could all be sailing on the Titanic. Rest assured your competitors aren’t passing up many opportunities to cozy up to their targets… and yours. But if the boss says “no!” because he views social media as a frivolity and time waster (if he isn’t familiar with it, he may be threatened by it), here are some tips to bring him/her around:

1. Offer to stage introductory social media sessions for interested employees and try hard to get the boss to attend. At these sessions, introduce some of the more popular social media platforms: for starters, LinkedIn, Facebook and the ubiquitous Twitter, and conduct a help session for set-up. Do this right before work or right after, so you won’t be viewed as an opportunist – one who is only seeking sanction for his own interests. Once your colleagues are relatively versed in setting up and using their personal accounts, you have laid the groundwork to communicate the need for social media in business.

2. Point out that most companies and federal/ state governmental agencies are already engaged heavily in social media. Show online that the United States Air Force has presence that is monitored by a 9-member Social Media Department.

3. Remind your boss that social media is not going away anytime soon. Because it involves engagement/relationships with customers/clients in a friendly way instead of the standard sales pitch – because it’s an authentic conversation that, over time, can translate to credibility, support, appreciation and understanding, it has great power and potential to grow. Social media tools may change forms, but it’s definitely here for the long term. Coupled with traditional sales and advertising efforts, it’s bound to make a bottom line difference.

4. Point out that your competitors are gaining ground every hour your company delays in getting onboard with social media marketing.

5. E-mail your boss this post, and attach a social media marketing success story or two, preferably examples of success within your industry.