4 Best Ways to Leverage Social Media as an Executive
In a 2018 survey, Forbes discovered that 75 per cent of employees think that a company is more trustworthy if their CEO is on social media. In 2019, though, Influential Executive found that only 54 per cent of Fortune 500 CEOs are on social media. Here are four ways to leverage social media as an executive, generating awareness to both your company and your personal brand.
1. Make sure to react and comment
There’s a reason this is number one. It’s easy to believe social media for executives is all about posting how-to articles and generating awareness, but like many things in life, social media starts from what you’re doing for other people.
So make sure you react and comment on other people’s posts! It’s the building block of everything else you do on social media. The best thing is, reacting and commenting is the most time-efficient thing you can do on social media. To research, plan, and publish an article, you need to block out at least a couple of hours. To read someone else’s post and write a thoughtful comment, though, takes about 10 minutes. It’s even easier if you found a friend posted an image.
It’s important that your comments are genuine, but don’t be harsh—if you think someone is an awful writer who knows nothing about their industry, don’t write a critical comment. In fact, as an executive, try not to write anything critical at all. Your criticism holds significant weight, and leaving a bad comment on social media is like criticising someone in public. Reserve your criticism for face-to-face interactions.
2. Write articles based on your experience and problems
Once you’ve reacted and commented on other people’s work, they’re much more likely to read your stuff. But how do you begin? It’s easy to look at someone else’s budding LinkedIn or Medium account with 100,000+ followers and get discouraged that you’ll never reach that level.
Like always, the trick is to think small. You can’t win a premiership in one go—you have to build it up with every training session. And to write a good article, you have to start in bite-sized parts. Don’t worry about article structure or getting readers or SEO; it’s too complicated to worry about at the start.
Instead, try writing about the problems you faced as an individual or team. For example, Melanie Perkins, CEO of Canva, wrote a very long LinkedIn article detailing some of the problems she faced while creating her startups Fusion Books and Canva. She mentions that when she and her boyfriend Cliff (now COO of Canva) were starting Fusion Books, some clients would ask to speak to the manager. Since it was a two-person job with no manager, ‘Cliff would pause a moment and change voices.’
It’s personal details like this that make you seem more trustworthy and authentic as an executive on social media.
(Of course, writing articles is never that easy. Keep an eye on Executive Agents, where we’ll soon be publishing an article on how to become a LinkedIn thought leader.)
3. Don’t be perfect, but be careful
The best thing about social media is that it makes everyone seem human. That goes for executives, political leaders, celebrities, athletes, and more. And if you want to be human, you’re not meant to be perfect.
Apart from personal details, the other great thing about Melanie’s article is that she’s vulnerable. While she’s currently CEO of a company worth $3.2 billion, in her article she writes about her fears, insecurities, failures, and the times she thought she wasn’t good enough. People are just people, no matter if you’re old or young or rich or poor, no matter what gender or race.
On social media, you shouldn’t try to be the perfect CEO or managing director, you should just be yourself. Something as simple as sharing a favourite breakfast meal can help generate employee engagement. Your team members could be thinking, My boss eats Weet-Bix at 7am just like I do.
But everyone’s heard horror stories of people sending the wrong Tweet and getting fired the next day, and as an executive, the heat on your shoulders is only magnified. Who knows, maybe you evade taxes, and your Weet-Bix photo accidentally includes incriminating evidence. Apart from trying to be a better person regarding the illegal stuff, the best thing to do is to get someone else to check every social media post you make. (You’re an executive; this absolutely isn’t over the top.) You can either turn it over to a trusted friend, a dedicated employee, or you can …
4. Bolster yourself with expert advice from an executive PR firm
It’s a headache, we get it. Even if you can write witty comments, post advice articles that generate tens of thousands of reads, and snap photos like a true professional—you still have to devote lots of time, because social media awareness doesn’t happen by itself.
Add that to all the safety concerns, and you see why it’s a good idea to consider consulting executive Public Relations firms, who are experts at running social media pages. Executive Agents uses an Online Reputation Management service, which we’ve used to help senior leaders from Telstra, EY, Deloitte, Woolworths, and more.
Besides, if you don’t have to worry about safety and all the ins and outs of managing your page, you can focus on just having fun—which is one of the best parts of social media. Yes, social media is fast becoming part of the executive job, but it shouldn’t be a chore like administrative activities. If you’re having fun and being genuine, your social media influence will surely be more effective.
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