Today we’re at PodCamp Pittsburgh 4, Anthony and I, along with hundreds of social media friends and colleagues. I spoke this morning on what seemed to be a popular topic: “How to Sell Social Media to Your Boss.”

You know social media is a great tool for marketing, customer feedback, and developing valuable communities, but your boss thinks it’s a waste of resources — or even a danger to the organization. How can you make your case? Cynthia Closkey of Big Big Design will discuss what managers need to know about social media and online networking, resources for finding examples and statistics that have weight, and a simple plan for helping your organization move ahead.

The room was full — sorry to those who found themselves having to sit on the floor — and many people shared their questions and conundrums about how to bring social media tools into their organizations.

Earlier this week, Chris Brogan had a post on the same topic. My ideas overlap his; it’s lovely to be in such good company on a topic. I particularly liked his idea for keeping your proposal for a pilot project to just one page, so I adopted that into my presentation. If you use that and it works, please thank Chris.

Here’s the Powerpoint for the session. You may reuse and adapt it; just credit Big Big Design as a source: Selling Social Media to Your Boss (PPT)

This afternoon I attended Jessica Knott’s session on screencasting, and I realized that screencasting is the perfect tool for posting presentations like this. So in the near future I’ll make a screencast of this talk, so you’ll get all the anecdotes, examples, and other details that aren’t on the slides themselves.

And if you are a boss and are wondering whether this social media stuff has any value for your organization, you might be interested in our workshop, Social Media: What Every Executive Needs to Know (and what your employees already know!)