24 Jan

Mary Barra is the chairman and CEO of General Motors and with over 1.2 million followers on LinkedIn and over 48K followers on Twitter, it is clear that she is a well-connected executive. For many executives who act as a brand advocate on social media, one of their core strengths is maintaining consistency in their tone. In this article, we will take a closer look at how Barra’s social media strategy helps reinforce a positive brand image.   LinkedIn: Sharing Original Articles   First, we will analyze Barro's LinkedIn profile. The header image features a look inside a General Motors factory, emphasizing the industry she is in. Compared to her Twitter profile header, this is more brand-related and speaks more about the tangible products the company offers.     The majority of her content is brand-related, whether it is an original article, sharing a post from another...

18:46 / Executive Spotlight
10 Jan

GreenBiz is an online media company that looks at sustainability from a business and technological standpoint. The site recently released their list of 20 C-suite executives whom Greenbiz believes will be making an impact in terms of leading their company with an environmentally-friendly mindset. ENGIE North America's CEO, Gwénaëlle Avice-Huet, made the list thanks to her work in moving the company away from the fossil fuel industry. Using her online presence and strong brand voice, she is a vocal advocate for decentralization and digitization, opening up data generated from ENGIE's wind farm in France to scientists and researchers. In this article, we will be analyzing her LinkedIn and Twitter social media profiles. We will look at how her social media content connects her values to her company's values and the ways executives on social can make use of similar practices in...

21:02 / Executive Spotlight
06 Dec

Paul Polman is all about the “four Ps:" people, purpose, passion, and positive attitude. During his 10 years at Unilever, Polman was known for his own personal brand of responsible capitalism, focusing on sustainability. After stepping down as Unilever's CEO at the end of 2018, Polman went on to co-found IMAGINE, a B2B brand. It is a consulting firm that helps businesses tackle issues regarding climate change and inequality. Almost an entire year ago, we took an in-depth look at Polman’s Twitter account in our previous Executive Spotlight article. In this article, we will be analyzing his Twitter once more, as well as his LinkedIn profile for the first time, and see what–if anything–has changed since 2018.   Twitter: Sharing Articles with Users   Compared to our previous Twitter analysis, not much has changed with Polman’s content. He is still very consistent with the topics...

15:32 / Executive Spotlight
22 Nov

Co-founded in 2004 by Dan Price, Gravity Payments is a credit card processing company dedicated to providing independent business owners with a low-cost alternative, while aiming to have transparent business practices. Price made headlines when he raised the minimum salary for all employees to $70,000 while cutting his own $1.1 million salary by 90%. While Price and the company faced backlash from some other businesses, and even some employees, Gravity Payments has been steadily growing ever since. In 2014, the company processed $3.8 billion and this amount grew to $10.2 billion in 2018. Revenue and profits have also doubled, while customer retention has increased from 91% to 95%. For reference, the industry average is a mere 68%. Meanwhile, the number of employees has grown from 120 when the new minimum wage was announced to 200. As the leader of such...

21:25 / Executive Spotlight
01 Nov

John Legere is not the type of executive that wears a suit and tie–at least, not unless it's magenta in color. The CEO of T-Mobile, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the U.S., is anything but your typical executive. He has cultivated 6.49 million followers on Twitter, over 75,000 followers on Instagram, and over 390,000 followers on Facebook.    John Legere is Mr. Magenta   If you do not recognize the name John Legere, you may be more familiar with his nickname: Mr. Magenta. It is a catchy phrase that perfectly describes Legere. On social media, he is often wearing the color, whether it is a t-shirt, sneakers, or even magenta hair for #NationalHairDay. This color choice is no accident as it is the same iconic magenta of T-Mobile's logo. It is a smart and subtle way of indirectly calling attention to the...

18:11 / Executive Spotlight
10 Oct

"The higher up you go in an organization, the less you actually know about how the organization *actually* runs. And the CEO is always the last to know." This type of candidness is what you can expect from Jason Fried, the co-founder and CEO of Basecamp. He is not one to mince words, whether it is in his articles about changing business culture, or his tweets criticizing the tech industry having “more worst practices than best practices.” His opinions on how to organize workflow, how projects should be managed, and emphasizing better, ethical business practices neatly ties into the Basecamp brand. At its core, Basecamp is a project management software that emphasizes organization and efficiency in an effort to keep tasks on track. It streamlines communication to increase productivity and helps make projects more manageable. Basecamp is aimed toward businesses that...

14:20 / Executive Spotlight
07 Jun

Profile pictures are crucial to an executive’s social media presence. Not only do they serve as a form of digital identification for a brand or person, but they also serve as an unspoken first impression. For influential executives such as Rihanna, a simple change in her profile picture recently symbolized a progression in her image and career. With over 70 million Instagram followers and 90 million followers on Twitter, Robyn Rihanna Fenty has successfully used these two social media platforms to distinguish her two main brand identities: on Instagram, she brands herself as Rihanna, the pop icon, and on Twitter, she is Rihanna, the face of the Fenty fashion empire. Fans have witnessed the famous popstar’s ongoing success as she continued to take on diverse projects such as releasing the body-positive lingerie line Savage x Fenty, landing an acting role in...

20:55 / Executive Spotlight
09 Apr

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...

06:00 / Executive Spotlight
30 Jan

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...

19:50 / Executive Spotlight