How Executives are Using Social Media (via Socialcast)

In another post, we discussed the WHY of Social Media, mainly citing that ‘your customers are having a conversation without you’, and therefore, you should be joining in on that conversation, somehow. And, there’s more than one way to utilize all that is Social Media.

WHAT am I doing here?

You can generally break your social media activities into 4 main categories:

Monitoring :

What is being said about your brand? What are your competitors doing? What content are they creating? Who do they follow? Are they any good at ‘this social media thing’? Can you see ways to differentiate yourself from them? Keep up on the latest research or trends, find opportunities, get inspiration for your own blogging/writing.

Communication/Storytelling :

Establish your profile, raise awareness of your brand, engage followers, perhaps reach out to other content creators. Build interest in your content.

Connecting : 

Build relationships with industry peers, potential investors, influencers and the public. Find researchers and experts in your field. Connect to executives. Build trust with and among industry peers. Help media, and collaborators find you.

Collaborate :

Work and collaborate more effectively. Create/join groups, choose tools and tags that relate to your industry, support your professional development.

Approach

Maybe you utilize one, or maybe you utilize all of the above categories. Perhaps you use Twitter for Monitoring, Facebook for Connecting, and/or a blog for Communicating. Why didn’t he mention StockTwits? … Generally, how you approach social media, what tools you should use, depends on your goals, assets, and audience. There are many unique examples of internal and external uses of social media.

How are other companies using social media?

a) Internal social media use example: Deloitte using Yammer.com, The Enterprise Social Network

“Steve Jobs once said, ‘innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea.’ Deloitte is a massive global organization with hundreds of offices, but now, we all have one, common ‘hallway’ called Yammer, and it is always 10:30PM.”

— US & Global Managing Director of Technology Innovation, Deloitte LLP

b) External social media use example: How Provident Security uses their blog

“Use social media for Customer service”. “We don’t sell online”. “Acts as an internal reference for out team”.

- Mike Jagger, Provident Security

What’s with the tangent?

Now, we are a Investor Relations and Corporate Communications firm, yet neither one of the above examples has anything directly to do with ‘selling’ anything, marketing, lead generation, ROI, etc. The point is, social media is much more multi-faceted than just straight marketing. The above examples are meant to get you to take a creative look at how social media can help your objectives, and how your company can potentially further integrate social media.

Again, how you and your company will use social media, what you will do with it, depends on what your goals are.

WHAT is stopping you?

So, with all the potential of Social Media, what is the one thing stopping CEOs from jumping on board? … more on this very soon.

How do make use of social media?

Do you have any unique examples of you or your company make use of social media?

Tell us about them in the comments section below, Twitter, and/or Facebook.

Social Media SOS?

Still need help defining your social media goals and objectives? Still don’t get how social media applies to you? Just don’t know where to start? We are here for you. Let us know your questions. Reach us at @steelrosecomm, find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, leave a comment below, or even email us.

Talk soon …