We all come on this forum to ask questions and discuss possible solutions and strategies and occaisionally we will mention a success story related to those topics. But why don't we all post a win or an accomplishment so that we can all be inspired. I will kick this off.

One of my clients was extremely dubious of social media in any way, shape or form. Whenever I attended monthly status meetings and spoke about the opportunities that existed to promote their busines through social media he would make joking comments that were subtle hints that he saw no benefit. So, I took matters into my own hands. I built a Linkedin presence for the company including a profile for the owner of the company and their heads of sales and marketing. In Linkedin I joined groups and posted announcements of webinars and events. I established a blog for the company and posted up content that they used in their monthly customer newsletters. I developed a twitter presence and tweeted about wins and tweeted links to case studies and press releases. I established a channel on YouTube and an account on SlideShare and put up sales content. All of these accounts and presences had links back to the corporate website. I then created a field on the various forms on the website asking people to say where they heard about the company. Two months later I gave a presentation during a monthly meeting showing how a number of leads were attributed to the presences I created. I also showed through google analytics all of the referrals to the corporate website that came from these presences and accounts. It was a gamble because I knew that if the results were not convincing or the owner found out what I was doing before I could prove the benefits I could lose my contract and possibly be sued. Happily, after the initial shock wore off I received a very public apology from the owner and he had me document all of my efforts and establish guidelines and processes to keep all of the activities moving forward.

Thanks for sharing this story. Many clients are not as convinced on the success of social media campaign. Your story proves that at the end of the game, it is the results that help make a campaign a success or a bomb.

It wasn't until after the fact that I realized I took a huge chance with my main client. But sometimes you have to take chances.