How to Provide Social Media Support to an Executive

Posted: November 08, 2011

Many execs intuitively realize that engaging staff in open, transparent dialogue is vital to a business. However, that level of support is still a large leap for many organizations. It’s [caption id="attachment_9127" align="alignright" width="360"]image courtesy of mashable.com[/caption]important to get executive leaders sold on the value of social support, because executive engagement improves company morale and makes for a more productive business.

Some executives are very socially sophisticated, while others may require extra coaching. Learn how to help guide your execs’ social efforts.

1. Listen First

What makes an executive social? Plugging into the market, anticipating customer and employee needs and proactively encouraging an organization toward action. In the end, listening is a huge part of achieving these goals.

2. Communicate Externally and Internally

A CEO who tweets and blogs is ideal. Those social actions humanize a company’s executive staff. Customers and partners feel enthusiastic that they can engage with someone high-up in your company.

What will make the most impact, however, is when each and every employee becomes an external ambassador, not just the few people at the top. That can only happen when everyone on staff has access to the same information, and is able to communicate that information across social networks – with guidance from the community manager, of course.

3. Be Open and Accessible

Approachable executives are paramount to foster a culture of openness and sharing. Encourage your leadership team to establish direct lines of communication.

Social media expert and author Charlene Li does a lot of training with corporate-level executives, helping them to overcome hesitations associated with online communication. Her website contains helpful tips and observations.

4. Coach and Reverse Mentor

Consider establishing a coaching system that disregards job titles to ensure that employees from all levels in the organization interact using consistent language, best practices and policies.

For instance, traditional mentoring has been a top-down process during which an executive mentor adopts a junior mentee. However, social rests on a different set of skills. Therefore, it may make sense to pair up “digital natives” with “digital dinosaurs,” says digital services agency Deloitte. Social communication can be new and different for some, so don’t assume that everyone is comfortable with it.

5. Start Small Conversations

Start executives off by encouraging them to post to a private space that you can monitor, then provide direct feedback. As the exec gets more comfortable, advise the following:

Start out by doing short updates: thoughts on the industry, or key strategic initiatives that you’d want people to rally around.
Over time, try evolving those short updates into longer-form posts. Discuss what’s going on in your world, and why the exec team is making certain decisions.
Be prepared to have a deeper dialogue. If you choose to be present in social media, you should also be accessible, which means answering tough questions.

6. Focus on Impact

It’s important to stress from the beginning that executive involvement will affect how the organization views social. As leaders, executives must recognize that their actions will affect not only themselves, but also the entire social process.

For example, my company’s customers generally report significant bumps in engagement after the CEO joins and engages on social media. One customer organization saw a 27.93% increase in messages, a 28.37% increase in replies and a 49.60% increase in “likes.”

Becoming an open and social organization takes time and hard work, and is much more complex than people realize. Social must be incorporated into everything a company does, not just as an afterthought. Therefore, it’s important to listen, act and learn.

Dynamic learning comes from creative internal friction, from taking risks and failing, from employees who challenge and support one other. Only then will a business be equipped to deal with its market.

Biz Tip Provided by: Maria Ogneva

Maria Ogneva is the Head of Community at Yammer, where she is in charge of social media, community programs, internal education and engagement. You can follow her on Twitter, her blog, and via Yammer’s Twitter account and company blog.