The CEO’s Important Role in Social Media
With 98% of companies having a social media presence, how you leverage that presence among your employees is being a hot topic of debate among CEOs. While marketing departments are often responsible for scheduling, creating, and posting company content on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, studies are now pointing to the integral role CEO’s play in social media marketing.
In a recent survey of Fortune 500 executives, Hootsuite found that over 40% of social media performance can be tied back to the social media activities of executives. This means the more CEOs and other business leaders within an organization share, comment or like posts about their company, the more employees did the same. With more overall interaction online, this increased the company’s digital reach and enhanced the effectiveness of social media marketing campaigns as a whole.
Yet, despite recent research pointing to the importance of CEOs taking an active role in their company’s social media activity, estimates suggest that 61% of Fortune 500 CEOs actually do not have a presence on social media at all. Instead, many top business leaders are preferring to lead their organizations from behind the scenes, while maintaining a very limited online persona. However, with customers looking for ways to feel connected with companies, especially on the same social media platforms they know and trust, CEOs that do not have a social media profile, of some kind, could be passing up a strategic opportunity to position their company ahead of their competition.
That’s why America’s leading CEOs are leveraging ways to actively engage with their company’s social media content, including responding to customer feedback and reviews directly. Though encouraging employees to share and interact with your company’s social media profiles may seem innocent enough, it is always best practice to establish clear policies and guidelines to ensure that what your employees share or comment is in line with your company’s brand, mission, and values.
Navigating the social media landscape can be a challenge, but doing so is serving to be a necessary component to better attract, connect with, and retain customers.