Is Your Social Media Helping or Hurting?

Megalomaniac CEO’s overuse their social media so their addicted egos can get the continuous adulations they need from their many manufactured ‘fans.’ Studies show the more time they spend on social media, the more they sink the value of the company they are supposed to lead. Others are so private or fearful of connecting with the users on social media that their scarce presence makes consumers dubious. In times of crisis, these leaders are ineffective because they lack credibility. Is your social media helping or hurting your venture? Join the discussion and learn the red flags and best practices for leveraging social media for adding value to your venture.

Introduction of Show Topic: Can Social Media Be an Effective Tool in Proactively Managing Your Brand? Your Reputation? Can it be Used Reactively?
Brief Recap of Past Couple of Shows
1. Who is the CEO? Is it the right CEO…4 CEO archetypes
  1. Naked Emperor/Megalomaniacs – Sink value of company: golf score, huge mansions, corporate jet for personal use, win awards, write books & sit on many boards while in office – Media whores who inappropriately use social media are more hurtful to company than helpful.
  2. Firefighters: these are the ones who are so busy putting out a bush fire in front of them they neglect the whole forest and they justify their business because they don’t get that they are putting out a modest impediment…they are “too busy” to plan and prepare, and unknowingly they lose sight of the vision of the venture
  3. Dinosaurs: who have long since been irrelevant to the company, but aren’t yielding to the next generation of leaders who want to grow and innovate in the company
  4. Benevolent Dictators: this is what everyone should strive for.
Finding the distinction between identities of CEO vs Company. Not mutually exclusive.
Many are using social media strategy for their companies but few to no one has figured out how to measure its efficacy or implement a meaningful social media strategy
Balancing the 2-way communications of social media:
1. Push- promotion of products and brand
2. Pull- customer/consumer communication/feedback
Review of Davidson Goldin: Goldin Solutions
1. Introduction of Goldin Solutions
2. Overview of clients main challenges with media in general
3. How do you measure the efficacy of media?
4. How do you advise clients in the use of social media?
5. How do you recommend finding the balance between media for the CEO relative to the media for the company and its products
6. Social media has made and sunk leaders…how would you advise CEOs to use social media professionally as it relates to their own career?
7. How can social media be used to manage reputation? Proactively? Reactively?
A Rebuttal of Davidson Goldin’s Commentary
1. Yes what you share on social media must be newsworthy, however, if you only use social media in a time of crisis and you don’t have a regular following, then you will not be trusted.
2. Studies show that if you are the leader of the company, you do need to have some presence to build the trust in your consumer group so they can feel comfortable with you at the helm. Where the privacy of the CEO over the past few decades was once a sign that this person was serious about their job and wouldn’t be distracted by such frivolities as social media. The naked emperors and media whores/megalomaniac leaders suck at using social media to build value in their company because they abuse it. They are on to feed their addicted egos and garner the continuous adulations they need from many manufactured ‘fans.’
3. While most haven’t figure out how to incorporate social media well, there are some great examples, such as Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, who has been able to really craft the dialogue between critiques and regulators and people believe him because he has established a proven track record of reliability.