By Priya Ramesh (@newpr)
I recently joined the Northern Virginia Technology Council’s Social Media Committee and very excited to be working with one of the largest technology think tanks to help its members take the right steps to social networking. As part of the NVTC Social Media Committee, I get to advise CEOs of startups in the Washington D.C. region on social media strategies. This blog post is inspired by a conversation I had this morning with the Principal Partner of an accounting software provider and an NVTC member who asked me, “Priya I don’t really have the time for social media but I realize its influence, what are three things I can do to build thought leadership online while becoming a better ambassador for my company?”
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) wears multiple hats and is also the Chief Communicator for the company ensuring that the right messages are being delivered the right way to the right audience. It’s easier for the CEO of a startup with 10-25 employees to walk around the office, shake hands and personally check-in with his/her team versus the CEO of a larger corporation that has a global workforce spread across different time zones. The end results are the same in both scenarios: re-energizing employee morale, injecting new blood when the going gets tough and strengthening customer loyalty but the size of the organization defines how the CEO communicates. The bigger and dispersed the company workforce, the wider communication gap between CEO and the rest of the company. Also having worked with hi-tech CEOs who are extremely tech savvy and brilliant but may not be charismatic and personable, how can you as the PR counsel help your top brass become more social? Have you considered using social media or specifically multi-media content?
Here are three simple steps to get your CEO to become more personable using social media:
1. Give your CEO a blog to voice his/her passion: For all the right reasons, the CEO is also the biggest cheer leader for the company and even better if the cheer leading stems out of a pure passion for what the company believes in delivering. Unlike the website or other traditional communication channels, a blog is a much more direct communication vehicle between the commander and chief and the army of soldiers. A blog works tremendously well if the CEO’s opinions and thoughts on industry news and trends are shared without much proof reading and editing from the PR department. A good example of a CEO who gets blogging is the Marriott CEO, Bill Marriott’s blog.
2. Let Your CEO talk through videos: How many times have you truly read through the CEO’s thought leadership piece on the internal company newsletter or magazine article? A more fun and effective way for the CEO to communicate with employees across borders or even customers on an external newsletter is through videos. Videos add the much needed personal touch as if the CEO were talking directly to YOU the employee, the customer or the shareholder and chances are you increased the number of people clicking through the CEO’s video versus the five paragraph narrative. Gary Vaynerchuck is my personal favorite in terms of using videos to build thought leadership and ultimtaely driving sales.
3. Extend your CEO’s presence on Twitter: Okay I know your eyes are rolling now and you are saying, “My CEO doesn’t have time to tweet.” I understand not all CEOs need to be tweeting but ask yourself these questions, “Is my target demographic on Twitter?” “Am I reaching the key influentials by getting my CEO to tweet at the least twice every day?”I am assuming CEOs start and end their days by reading something that pertains to their industry, market etc. Now make them just add their two cents to a hot topic and tweet about it. There are two benefits to a CEO tweeting: Just like a blog, now you have minimized the numerous degrees of separation that your key stakeholders had with your top management and as you know, for some reason, when the head honcho of the company comments or in this case tweets about an industry hot topic, everyone wants to LISTEN. Here’s a list of CEOs who get Twitter from BusinessWeek.
Gone are the days of C-suite members maintaining a professional distance with their employees and conserving their energy to ONLY communicate to investors and media through traditional channels. The lines of communication are blurring with social networks and the smart CEOs are those that are engaging on a more informal level and taking their vision directly to their audience. Tell us what you are doing to get your CEO more involved on social networks.
Good info – but I had to crack up when I read “My CEO doesn’t have time to tweet.”
I’d wager that the time is there, but the willingness or know-how isn’t. Those same CEOs might have tons of time for other activities, so getting them to use social media more might b a function of showing or explaining to them how it would help their business, rather than lack of time.
Cheers!