BusinessWeek carried the results of a recent survey on Fortune 100 CEOs and their use of social media. Not surprisingly, few of these leaders find the time to use social media to connect, communicate, and engage with their stakeholders.
Let's go down the list:
* Twitter - 2: Warren Buffett and Proctor & Gamble's CEO use Twitter.
Ok, so Twitter is an odd tool. And despite its overwhelming popularity among the over-35 crowd, sentiment still exists that's reflected by the first commenter at the BusinessWeek article:
So what do you think...thirty days max before the respective companies fold? All because I don't know if the Wells Fargo CEO had a ham or salami sandwich for lunch. Stop vilifying people because they don't want to share every detail of their lives with a jaded world.
Funny. Of course, no one cares about what a CEO had for lunch, or their favorite color or their favorite movie. But then, social media like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are now used for so many more practical, immediately useful, networking purposes that the commenter may know of Twitter only from...mainstream media reports.
Ok, what about Facebook?
* Facebook - 19. But as UberCEO writes: most don’t have very many friends. Kenneth Lewis at Bank of America has 13 friends, John Strumpf at Wells Fargo has 12 friends and Vikram Pandit at Citigroup has only 8 friends. A handful only have one friend each and Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, doesn’t have any Facebook friends.
Understandable for Rex Tillerson. Still, his shareholders might friend him...They should. He's done a great job...for them.
Mr. Pandit might find more friends among Citi employees now that he's raised salaries there by as much as 50% to avoid bonus limits. These limits were imposed as part of the deal that gave him my tax dollars to rescue Citi. The bonus work-around was created to keep some of the same decision-makers that led Citi to need my tax dollars. Sure, there are lots of great people at Citi whose results were diminished by some of their colleagues' fine decision-making. Those you want to keep, obviously. One would think a case could be made for creating exemptions for their bonus limits and receiving approval from my elected board member, aka member of Congress.
And Facebook remains...for me...disorderly, distracting, disconnecting. Settings change randomly, never for my benefit. Layouts appear and then disappear. However, some people love it.
* But LinkedIn? LinkedIn is the dignified statesman of social media. And, 13 CEOs have profiles but only three have more than 10 connections. ( I have more than 10 connections. )
Again, CEOs have no time to notice what they had for lunch, much less share it even when networking old-school style, one-to-one, eye-to-eye...in person.
However, CEOs are the leader. They are the titular head of the brand. Sure, others speak for it. But the CEO is...the leader.
Leaders lead. They lead by communicating. They communicate a vision. And, a CEO is the chief person to execute that vision. That doubles the requirement for communication skills.
And today’s business environment requires more engagement, more connection, more collaboration with ALL the stakeholders in a brand. Stakeholders include shareholders. Stakeholders also include the:
- Employees who deliver the vision the customers experience and come to know as the brand. For customers, the employees are the brand.
- Customers are another stakeholder. Their lives in some part depend on the solutions a brand delivers, or doesn’t. The great brands insure they are a large part of our lives.
- Vendors and partners are the other stakeholders. It’s with them they find the missing resources to deliver their brand.
Today's CEO must communicate, connect and yes, collaborate, with all the stakeholders of a brand in order to deliver...their brand.
Social media isn’t the only way a CEO connects, etc with their stakeholders. There are many other means to connect, communicate and collaborate with all the stakeholders. There are hugely successful brands whose CEO doesn’t use social media. Though their numbers are declining. There are brands whose CEO does use social media and the brand suffers. Neither refutes the power of social media to easily and cost-effectively connect with their stakeholders.
That’s the key point: social media is an easy, convenient, and cost-effective means to communicate, connect and collaborate with all the stakeholders. CEOs are charged with maximizing ROA, return-on-assets. Only Peter Drucker pointed out that employees were a company’s most important asset. What better way to inspire, engage...communicate, connect and collaborate...maximize their ROA from their most important asset? Is there a better way to communicate, connect, collaborate with...gasp...their customers. On and on.
I mentioned today’s business environment. It’s challenges are only magnified for Fortune 100 companies where their size and their tendency to maximize profits at the expense of innovation or meaning with their stakeholders other than their shareholders makes them too often poster-children for brands out of touch with the current needs of their customers, the talent of their employees, the possibilities of their vendors and partners. And outs their leader’s vision out of reach for their employees to read much less understand, share and as a result, engage.
So, no. A brand’s demise is not imminent because I don’t know the CEO’s lunch choices. But a brand’s demise is imminent when the CEO rejects the most cost-effective means to communicate, connect and collaborate with ALL the stakeholders responsible for their brand’s success and the CEO’s career.
On a post yesterday, I blogged about focus depends on the ability to just say no. But the trick is to just say no to the right things. Social media is the right thing to just say yes.
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