Something that is one of the most difficult parts of an implementation of a social media solution is to drive adoption. A concept that is used very often is to use heros (or champions or ambassadors just give these group of people a name), people that will have a leading roll during the implementation and will be helping others to adopt the solution.

Although in good fairytales heros always save the day, your heros actually might not. Especially since your implementation is not a fairytale, it might be even a nightmare. You, with all the budgets and time constraints, are looking for some real super heros, who will make things work instantly and are able to move the masses in using this social media solution without any hesitation.

Super heros don’t exist

Face it: super heros don’t exist, so get over it. So since super heros don’t exist you might just want to go for the more regular hero. Which might be found somewhere in your organization, however to have the same result as with the super hero, you need more than one hero. Even more important, you need more than one hero and these heros should be diverse, since as a superhero can do everything great, a mere hero can just do a few things great, plus a super hero flies around with the speed of light while the mere hero you’ll find in your organisation is most often tied to his desk with other work to do.

As you might have noticed, the hero concept comes with some contraints. You should have multiple heros, which are quite diverse and who are not all in the same place in the organization. Your heros are part of the team that helps to accelerate things, helps people to adopt and change. So before you are thinking of introducing heros, think of what they should do, where they should be and how you can help them to be the hero you need. And more important: think of how you will solve your problem when there are no heros, or not enough heros.

Beware of the evil stepmother

A concept such as heros might seem to be easy to introduce, however you should prepare it thoroughly, otherwise you might end up with some evil stepmothers chasing you since the adoption of the social media solution was not successfull. And there will be no super hero to save you!