My guppy, lovingly named “Spot” by my daughter, disappeared from my fish tank yesterday. One day s/he was there, the next day…gone. Didn’t realize how attached I was to that guppy. So when I saw the following two slideshares from Jeremiah Owyang, a web strategist who works for Forrester Research and blogs at Web-Strategist.com, I couldn’t help but think of my guppy as a broader metaphor.

Pay attention to your fish, people.

Without further ado, you can view these slidedecks below or on SlideShare.net. (Storyboard #1: Social Media Marketing and Storyboard #2: Social Reef)

Enjoy.

Now, to be clear, I’m not saying these are barriers of the “deal breaker” variety. HOWEVER, when I’m giving talks and presentations, this is what you’re telling me are your barriers to entry into social media, despite the cartwheels I am doing to convince you otherwise.

This poll will provide us all with some good data (and who doesn’t love some good data?); but the real fun to be had is in taking each issue (let’s not call them “barriers” anymore) off the “problem” table. After all, business—even social business—is about solutions, is it not?

So let’s do this poll and see which barrier bugs you the most. Then we’ll take ‘em out, one at a time. Ooh-rah! Hooah! And Hooyah!

(If you’re receiving this post via RSS I applaud your content management strategy and I further invite you to click here to view the poll if the image does not appear above.)

I’m not criticizing.

Seriously. Just asking.

• Did you set up that twitter account months ago and then never return?
• Are you on facebook but never post about your status…or never comment on others’ posts?
• Are you on LinkedIn but you don’t invite people to join your network; you just accept invites?

I’m not calling you out, here.

I’m calling you in.

I want to know what is stopping you from joining in.

I’ll go first…I’m anti-social by nature. But here I am, rallying like a lunatic for social media. What was the thing that had been stopping me from getting into it sooner? Time. I didn’t think I had the time to engage. It’s also a little scary putting yourself “out there.” Few of us are immune to the fear of criticism. (And I’m not sure I believe those who say they are.)

So, “time” and “fear” were my personal obstacles. BUT, my drive to overcome obstacles was and is stronger than the two of those “stoppers” combined.

So, tell me, what’s stopping you?

I happen to think that, together, we can overcome just about anything. But, first, you need to speak up. I’m here for ya, listening… But I’m getting old. So you’re going to need to speak louder.

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Say you’re an employee at a small business and the boss isn’t the least bit interested in social media. But you are. Maybe you think the company you work for could really benefit from being more “social.”

Take action.

This is an opportunity. Put together a plan and march it on up the ladder. Propose to management that YOU can enter the social sphere on behalf of the company.

Explain the value.

Even if they’re not active participants, are they active listeners? Are they monitoring the Interwebs for mentions of their name or their competitions’ names? If not, tell them that you can do this for them.

Set the parameters.

Explain that people trust “people,” not companies. And since you’re a person, you’re perfectly positioned to build the trust. (Who could argue with logic like that?) Explain where you think the business should have a presence and why. Show how you would monitor your activity and the competition’s. Provide them with ideas for how they can assess your engagement and the value of the “intelligence” that you could bring to the business.

Promote yourself.

Be proactive. Step up and offer to take this on in addition to your normal workday, just like you treat social media when you’re not at work. It’s just part of what you do. Test the waters and see how it goes. If you’re not thrilled with your job, but you love social media, create an opportunity to do more of what you love.

You have nothing to lose.

Make yourself the leader of social business at your company. You’ll learn a ton. You’ll make new connections. And, while you’re at it, you may enhance the way you feel about your company and the way your company feels about you.

Have questions? Ask away.

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