CEOs and Social Media? Here are some tips!

Is it a good idea for CEOs to get involved in the social media medium?

Well, as stated by Chad Brooks, Weber Shandwick (PR firm) and KRC Research (Research Partner) support that 'more than three-quarters of executives worldwide believe it is a good idea for CEOs to participate in social media'.

What are the benefits of CEOs being active and getting involved with social media?

As stated in their research, 'more than 70 percent of those surveyed said CEO sociability increases information-sharing throughout the business, improves company reputation, demonstrates innovation, humanizes the company and improves business results.'

Moreover, "CEOs must strategically utilize the right digital platforms that advance their communications — ranging from their own intranet and website to social network pages and feeds to video and image-sharing platforms," as stated by Chris Perry (Global President, Weber Shandwick's digital practice).

As a result of the research, a profile of the most socially active CEOs was put together which includes the following 'traits':

• Use an expansive set of social tools: Hyper-social CEOs realize sociability goes beyond dropping messages into a Twitter or other microblog feed. World-class sociability requires a strategically crafted plan for driving the company's content across several channels.
  
• Keep a blog: Highly social CEOs see the value in long-form content creation as a way of giving their perspectives context, meaning and depth.
  
• Leverage the website: These leaders realize that the website remains "digital ground zero" for company information-seekers and offers a platform for content to be delivered in multiple formats.
  
• Self-author: By taking a DIY approach. Their frequent postings influence their determination to author everything themselves, although they probably take input from their marketing and communications executives.
  
• Be forward-looking: These CEOs intuitively understand that technology and social media are the future of content distribution and they want to be part of this communications revolution.
  
• Be spontaneous yet not too informal: Socially adept CEOs maintain the formality of their office but let stakeholders know that they can react quickly and seize opportunity.
  
• Engage stakeholders. These CEOs see the value in sociability and use it to reach out to a wide portfolio of stakeholders.

Research results based on surveys of 630 business professionals in 10 countries across North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific.

source: businessnewsdaily.com