03 May

It’s true: regardless of your industry, you and your company can benefit from an executive social media presence, potentially outperforming a branded presence by as much as 320%! Where your industry starts to matter, however, is in your approach. B2B companies and B2C companies have vastly different business models, and the social strategy and tactics employed for each must be customized for those differences. Regardless of which category you fall into, if you’re looking to launch an executive social media presence for yourself or for your company’s leaders, we’ve put together a two-part series covering things you should consider before you get started. In this installment, we’ll be discussing the platform, audience and measurement variations for a B2B versus B2C executive. Platform While every social media platform provides its own unique value, you don’t need to, nor should you, be on all...

17:07 / Articles / Guide
16 Apr

Not all social platforms are equal, and while some platforms like LinkedIn are ideal for showcasing owned content in the form of articles, no platform is quite as well-positioned for leaders to observe, join, and ultimately impact a wider narrative than Twitter. Twitter is a timely, trend-driven platform that is ideal for sharing newsworthy content and authentic perspectives. It can be leveraged not only to have a voice in relevant industry conversations but to also quickly communicate expertise and unique perspectives with followers. It is also a platform that encourages commenting, sharing and discussion. In this blog post, we’ve put together guidelines to help executives effectively leverage the platform for impactful thought leadership on Twitter. "While Twitter increased the character count maximum per tweet from 140 characters to 280 characters in 2017, the ideal length of a tweet has remained between...

09:00 / Articles / Guide
02 Apr

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...

15:46 / Articles / Guide
19 Mar

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...

08:00 / Articles
28 Feb

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...

23:48 / Articles / Guide
05 Nov

In order to understand what makes our in-house tool, Social Intelligence Optimization (SIO), so powerful, we must first analyze the social media landscape for executives. Our most recent research shows that executives and leaders clearly outperform brands in terms of engagement on LinkedIn, on the order of 3x. But to take advantage of this leg up on brands, executives need a strategic and thoughtful social presence that’s optimized for their audience. "Executives and leaders clearly outperform brands in terms of engagement on LinkedIn, on the order of 3x." As we look to position leaders effectively on LinkedIn and other social platforms, it is critical to analyze and understand the various parameters that can drive impressions and, more importantly, valuable engagements. This is something that agencies and brands alike have struggled with, often resorting to anecdotal insights and conclusions based on very small...

11:41 / CEO Insights by Elissa Liu
22 Oct

Can leaders and executives naturally achieve much higher engagement rates on LinkedIn than the brands and companies they work for? We’ve seen third-party reports and articles on this subject over the last year or so, but we set out to prove it ourselves with data. We also wanted to better understand the variety of factors driving higher social media engagement rates for top-performing leaders on LinkedIn.   Our Social Media Engagement Research We looked at more than one thousand profiles on LinkedIn, focusing on executives, leaders and brands, and created 3 tiers (low, medium, and high) based on the size of their respective followings. We defined the low tier as under 10,000 followers, the medium tier as between 10,000 and 50,000 followers, and the high tier as more than 50,000 followers. We then examined the rate of social media engagement, defined as likes and...

16:44 / CEO Insights by Elissa Liu
03 Jul

Last week, executives of the world’s top companies spoke out on the separation of migrant children from their parents. In this edition of Front Page Execs, we’ll examine how three influential executives from two particular companies handled the situation: Lyft’s co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green, and Uber’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi....

15:09 / Front Page Execs
06 Jun

In 2018, most brands have a social media presence. They invest many hours and dollars into developing a steady cadence of high-quality content that aligns with their brand voice and objectives, and that is optimized for each social channel. On a day-to-day basis, these brands focus on how to capture and engage their audience with creative campaigns and influencer content, all while justifying the investment and trying to show ROI. It’s a road well-traveled for most brands. But what about executives? Most senior executives, however, do not yet have a strong social presence, particularly CEOs. Only 39% of CEOs have any social media presence at all. Why is it that there are so many brands who concentrate on the brand account, and yet often neglect the account of the face of the brand itself? It’s usually a combination of factors, from...

02:49 / CEO Insights by Elissa Liu