I’ve been enjoying Michael Hyatt’s (@michealhyatt) podcast, “This Is Your Life”. While listening to a recent episode, my perspective on social media for business leaders underwent a significant shift when Michael offered his thoughts and experience on how busy business leaders find time for social media. His suggestion?
Reframe social media. Make it a part of what you already do by using it to deliver on your responsibilities as a business leader.
Consider these four common responsibilities of a business leader.
- Raising your organization’s visibility.
- Articulating your organization’s vision.
- Networking with people who can help you.
- Being alert to what your constituents are saying.
Raising your organization’s visibility.
There are a lot of ways to raise an organization’s visibility. I’m not going to attempt an exhaustive list, but a few that come to mind are attending events, speaking engagements, TV and print ads, sponsoring groups, trade shows…
The most effective way to raise visibility is to have people opt-in to your organization’s messaging on social media channels, including your blog. Why is this approach the most effective?
Because your followers want to hear from you and you create trust through this networking. You can join new social circles without the expense or headache of travel. Best of all, it supports all of your other online marketing.
Articulating your organization’s vision.
As business leaders, we know that when it comes to vision we can never communicate this too often. A shared vision creates the transparency and trust needed to have everyone pulling in the same direction. By “everyone”, I’m thinking of all of our community members, from staff to potential employees, vendors and customers.
I agree with Michael that social media, particularly blogging, is a powerful delivery tool for this.
Networking with people who can help you.
How many times have you tapped into a new group of people that have helped you do something you couldn’t do on your own? Social media takes this to the next level because it’s an easy and effective way to meet, stay in touch and build relationships with people who can help you grow your business.
Being alert to what your constituents are saying.
While I see the value of traditional market research in certain instances, we’ve never been able to cost-justify the expense of an extensive market research project. Instead, we’ve used interviews and surveys to gain an understanding of the constituents of a business – including our own.
Social media research has been a great addition to our own market research process. It’s amazing what you can learn and the valuable conversations you can participate in just by narrowing in on your a list of your constituents on social media.
Building workflows to make social more manageable.
This shift in thinking has renewed my interest, prompting me to start building workflows to make social media easier to manage. I’ll share my progress in an upcoming post. Meanwhile, you get some tips by reading the show notes and/or listening to episode #60 on michealhyatt.com.
How have you rethought social media for your leadership role? Have you used social media, including blogging, to deliver on your responsibilities as a business leader? I’d love to hear your experience.
