11 May Launch an Effective Social Media Presence for Busy Executives

One of the most common reasons why marketers haven’t been able to strategically position their company’s executive online is because the executive is often busy with other responsibilities.

An executive social media presence has become an integral part of a company’s digital marketing strategy, so this roadblock can be a significant challenge to overcome. However, there are ways to launch an effective social media presence for executives that are short on time. Read our tips below based on our own experience working with busy exec clients!

1. Create Social Media Content in Batches

One way to help relieve the burden on executives is to create social media content in larger batches. For example:

• Draft up multiple posts for them to review at one time, rather than sending out one post to review at a time.
• If developing videos is a part of your social media strategy, have your executive film several different videos all at once. Here’s a bonus tip: bring a few different outfits just so it’s not too obvious that the videos were all shot on the same day!

For busy executives, it’s often easier to set aside a specific time in their calendar to review social media content. Marketers can use this time strategically and have the execs review content in larger batches so that they get more of it done in one go.

When creating social media posts ahead of time, marketers will want to “future-proof” the content, which leads us to our next section.

2. Focus on Future-proofing Your Content

Certain content topics are more “evergreen” and can be a reliable (and flexible) way to manage a busy executive’s social media account, especially when not posting often, such as once a week. What do we mean by evergreen social media content?

These are topics or messages that:

• Can be shared at any time because they’re not tied to a specific event or trend that may be outdated if a reader sees the post a few months down the road.
• Often have a long runway. In other words, the post remains valuable even weeks or months after being published. The actual message of the post doesn’t become outdated.

By focusing on evergreen topics, marketers can future-proof their executive’s content. Another benefit is that it’ll allow you to schedule posts ahead of time so that there’s a consistent stream of posts going out on the executive’s social media feed.

3. Simplify Social Media Review Processes

While marketers may default to having their executive do all of the reviewing because the content will be posted on their personal social media accounts, the truth is that there are many different types of review stages — and your exec doesn’t have to be involved in every single one of them.

It may make sense for you or your marketing team to take a first pass at the content since, chances are, working alongside your exec means you’ve picked up nuances like words or phrases they often use as well as their tone and personality.

If an executive is comfortable, they might just want to review the content topic and trust that the marketer will be able to translate that into the exec’s authentic voice. Likewise, if the executive isn’t keen on reviewing custom graphics that will be used in a post, it’s perfectly fine to bypass this and have a member of the company’s design team or marketing team review the creatives instead.

4. Leverage the Expertise of a Social Media Agency

Sometimes, it’s not just the executive that has a lot on their plate — the internal marketing team does as well! In this case, it makes sense to bring on a partner experienced in executive social media.

The benefit of leveraging the expertise of a social media agency is that they’re well-equipped to deal with any type of executive, including ones that are very busy! They’ll have clear processes in place that can streamline each step of the review process.

Read about the different services marketers can access when partnering with a social media agency.

Being Strategic With Your Executive’s Time!

Here’s a bonus tip: consider times when your executive seems to be more busy compared to other days of the week or months of the year. For example, your executive might be much busier prepping for the company’s quarterly financial reports during certain months, which limits their review time. Knowing these trends ahead of time can help you manage expectations and your executive’s social media content.

Ultimately, it’s about being as strategic as possible with your executive’s time because, like you, they also want their social media presence to be valuable.

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