Did you know that your CEO’s online presence can help improve brand awareness, drive traffic to the company’s website, and even generate leads?
Whether marketers want to establish a brand new social media presence for their executive or support their executive’s existing online presence with highly strategic business content, it’s well worth the time and effort because getting noticed on social media can help drive toward business objectives.
Keep reading to learn five different ways executives can attract more attention on social media.
1. Promote Your CEO on Your Company’s Social Media Channels
One straightforward and simple way for marketers to promote their CEO’s social media presence is to occasionally reshare content the executive has posted.
For example, if they’ve shared an interesting article about leadership, reshare their post on the company social channels and add a unique comment, such as, “Check out this interesting article shared by our CEO, @[Name of CEO]. Be sure to visit her page and insights on this topic.”
Another strategy is to encourage employees to reshare an executive’s content. This not only boosts engagement for the executive’s post, but it improves visibility as well by sharing content with an audience that may not be following the executive or the company.
Depending on which social media platform your CEO is on, there are different ways the company’s social media page can be used. We wrote an entire article about it, so be sure to check it out: 9 Ways to Support Your Executive’s Social Media Presence.
2. Position Your CEO as a Proactive Member of the Social Media Community
Though it takes time and effort, being active and engaged within the social media community is a way for CEOs and executives to get noticed on social media. This includes activities such as “liking” or reacting to other users’ content, leaving a comment, or resharing a post.
In other words, stay “social” on social media! It’s not just about posting content every day or every week, but taking a deeper dive into what other social media users are posting.
An easy way for CEOs to start being more proactive is to start by responding to comments left on their own social media posts. Even if the response to a user might be simple (e.g. “Thanks for reading!”), it shows that the CEO is actively reading comments and engaging with them.
3. Share Social Media Content Consistently
One of the best ways for CEOs to get noticed on social media is to stay top of mind and that means sharing content on a consistent basis. While some executives may get away with posting once a week (or even less often than that), the fact is that most CEOs don’t have a massive following of millions or tens of thousands of people.
Especially for executives who are just starting out on social media with zero followers, it’s even more important to stick to a consistent posting schedule of around two or three posts per week.
4. Engage Social Media Users By Showing Their Expertise
What kind of content can your company’s CEO offer to their followers? An easy (and obvious) answer is their expertise. Sharing content where they can provide their own expertise is an excellent way to strategically position your CEO on social media. For example, consider a CEO with a company in the fashion industry that is also passionate about sustainability. They might want to share comments on how they’re improving sustainability at their fashion company or post a third-party article about how many clothes are sent to landfills every year.
Once a CEO has built up a reputation of being knowledgeable and passionate in a certain area, others might approach them with offers such as a podcast interview or an opportunity to provide thoughts on a particular trending topic for an article. News outlets like CNBC or magazines like Forbes often include quotes, soundbites, or other content from industry experts.
This is why it’s important for executives on social media to share more than just promotional posts that link to their company’s website. Thought leadership content on social media can effectively position a CEO within their industry.
5. Shine the Spotlight on the CEO
One of the main differences between a company and a CEO is that executives are people with personalities. That’s why it’s crucial to create authentic and relatable content on an executive’s social media page.
It’s not just about the variety of different content topics and formats, but how often social media users are seeing the executive featured in the content. For instance, video is one of the higher-effort types of content, but there are many benefits to creating and sharing videos.
They allow CEOs to speak directly to their social media followers and give them a chance to showcase more of their personality.
Strategic CEO Social Media Positioning
When trying to amplify your CEO’s social media presence, keep this in mind: getting noticed on social media is not the same as going viral. There’s no formula for going viral — and that shouldn’t be your goal as marketers or executives.
One of the most important things for marketers to keep in mind is that building a strategic online presence takes time.