09 Apr

Posted on April 9, 2019 in Executive Spotlight

Richard Branson says, “I don’t see any separation between work and play – it’s all just living, and I love sharing all of it,” and his LinkedIn profile clearly reflects that sentiment. Dr. Yes—as he is affectionately referred to at Virgin—is a self-proclaimed dyslexic thinker who loathes ties and believes in turning ideas into reality, as demonstrated time and again at Virgin. Branson’s professional LinkedIn profile effectively showcases each aspect of his identity, blending business, personal, and larger social topics to position himself as both a reliable source of information and an approachable person. Richard Branson is currently the number one rated LinkedInfluencer—an exclusive collective of 500+ of the world’s foremost thinkers—let’s shift our executive spotlight to Richard Branson and take a closer look at how he uses LinkedIn to position himself as a revolutionary thought leader. Visuals Richard Branson uses all...

02 Apr

Posted on April 2, 2019 in Articles, Guide

When it comes to creating an effective social media presence for business leaders and executives, LinkedIn is a great place to start. Because the platform is best-positioned for professional networking, most executives will already have, or can easily build, a base network of personal and professional connections, creating a strong, credible foundation for ultimately attracting prospective talent, customers and investors. Like anything, though, a poorly managed social presence may be more detrimental than having no presence at all. In this post, we’ve laid out some basic best-practice guidelines to help you get started and make the most out of your executive social media presence with an optimized LinkedIn profile. "Like anything, a poorly managed social presence may be more detrimental than having no presence at all." Optimized LinkedIn Profile Let’s start with the cornerstone of your LinkedIn program, your optimized LinkedIn profile. Leveraging...

26 Mar

Posted on March 26, 2019 in Front Page Execs

This month, influential executive Tim Cook, Apple CEO, made headlines once again when he briefly changed his name on his Twitter account. This is what it looked like: In this edition of Front Page Execs, we’ll take a look at the events leading up to the “Tim Apple” name change, as well as the ingenuity behind the move for this executive’s social media presence. On March 6, 2019, President Donald Trump mistakenly referred to Tim Cook as “Tim Apple” during a meeting of the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board at the White House. Social media, of course, latched onto this accident, and “Tim Apple” began to trend on Twitter. Less than twenty-four hours later, Tim Cook rode that trending wave to the top when he changed his name to Tim Apple on the platform. Twitter users loved it. By capitalizing on the trend...

19 Mar

Posted on March 19, 2019 in Articles

Update: View our Fortune 500 archives here to get insights into our latest findings!   Back in 2015, CEO.com published its 2015 Social CEO Report, which included a widely quoted statistic pertaining to executive social media. That statistic was the fact that only 39% of Fortune 500 CEOs were on any social media platform, and 61% weren’t on any at all! We’ve seen these numbers quoted as recently as this year, so we thought it was time for an update. Our team at Influential Executive replicated the study in February of 2019 using the most recent Fortune 500 list, going through 500 executives one by one to search across platforms for public pages and evaluating the level of activity for each. The results? As of 2019, 54% of Fortune 500 CEOs have at least some social presence. As of 2019, 54% of Fortune...

28 Feb

Posted on February 28, 2019 in Articles, Guide

If you’re wondering whether your target audience is on social media, the short answer is: yes. Whether you’re seeking new customers, looking to foster relationships with talent or fishing for investors, your target audience is using social media to make decisions, and a thoughtful executive social presence can do wonders when it comes to building credibility around your brand. In fact, a BRANDfog survey found that 73% of respondents indicated that being engaged on social media makes CEOs more effective leaders by building trust and confidence. Additionally, 93% of respondents said that socially engaged CEOs are able to build better connections with customers, talent, and investors. The bottom line is, whether you’re looking to build out a social program for your company leaders or you’re an executive looking to bolster your own presence on behalf of your brand, communicating regularly...

30 Jan

Posted on January 30, 2019 in Executive Spotlight

In August 2018, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff made the decision to promote the company’s COO Keith Block to be its new co-CEO. Salesforce’s long-time founder was prompted to partner up with Block after taking a two-week-long digital detox last July. After this brief hiatus, Benioff told CNBC that experiencing such tranquility without his electronics made him realize one thing: he was too busy. With Block now helping Benioff run the 20-year-old cloud-based software company, Benioff has been focusing his attentions on passion projects to use his position of power for social good. By focusing on this aspect of his leadership, Salesforce has also seen the added benefit of having a positive and public face for the brand. From a quick glance at Benioff’s Twitter page, it is instantly clear what type of leader the Salesforce CEO and newly named owner of...

07 Jan

Posted on January 7, 2019 in Front Page Execs

In this special New Year’s edition of Influential Executive’s Front Page Execs, we’ll take a brief look together at the ups and downs of Musk’s Twitter presence over the course of 2018, which would eventually lead to this quasi-censorship on his social media....

03 Dec

Posted on December 3, 2018 in Executive Spotlight

While many other sources are, at this moment, recording Polman’s professional legacy, in this edition of Executive Spotlight by Influential Executive, we’ll take a closer look at the former CEO’s Twitter legacy....