26 Nov A Thought Leader in the Tech Industry
Lenovo Chairman and CEO Yuanqing Yang is a social media pro, using his Linkedin and Twitter accounts to highlight his professional achievements and to share the achievements of his colleagues. Yang’s use of social media is significant because it shows how he is able to effectively utilize the digital landscape. He doesn’t use social media to share personal content; instead, his social media presence has become an extension of the Lenovo brand he leads with distinction.
As the public face of such a recognizable company, Yang highlights company milestones and achievements. In addition, he honors the successes of his Lenovo colleagues and significant changes taking place with the Lenovo leadership team. Yang shares this type of content because he understands that consumers are more likely to engage with branded content when they come from his feed rather than Lenovos’ page. In this article, we examine the ways Yang uses LinkedIn and Twitter to create engaging branded content and how executives can learn from his online strategy.
LinkedIn: Yang’s Calling Card
Yuanqing Yang’s LinkedIn page has more than 270,000 followers. He shares important company updates and notable Lenovo advancements. Yang uses LinkedIn to elevate Lenovo’s success and highlight his successful leadership of the brand. For example, in this post, he shares how Lenovo’s products have been highlighted in TIME’s article of the best inventions in 2021. He has also effectively tagged both his company and the publisher. We always recommend that executives include tags as it helps boost the post’s reach. Given that LinkedIn’s audience primarily consists of professionals, Yang effectively understands the importance of using this platform to create conversations around technology and innovation.
Yang’s post shown above is an example of how he uses social platforms to boost Lenovo’s online profile. Here, he chooses to use an eye-catching text-based image that highlights Lenovo’s sustainability efforts and their successful Q1 results this year. The color blue is easy on the eyes and the colors are not too bright. When sharing text-based graphics, we always recommend that the text is large and easy to read, which it is in this case. The branded elements—such as the colors and logo—are effectively used, which results in a polished and professional-looking image.
Yang’s audience on LinkedIn is engaged with his content. Many of his posts garner a lot of reactions and comments, such as his post about honoring women on International Women’s Day. High engagement is an indicator that the content he’s posting is relevant to his followers. They look to his LinkedIn as a touchpoint for the Lenovo brand, and they recognize it as a source of inspiration, innovation, and growth in the tech industry.
While he’s primarily focused on sharing content about the tech industry, there are times when he will share other types of content. For example, in this post, he congratulates the Ducati team on their world championship. However, what is consistent is that the post he is sharing is still tangentially related to the Lenovo brand. This is an important strategic detail for new executives in the tech industry to keep in mind. Highlighting professional achievements for your company elevates your brand and establishes credibility early on.
Twitter: Offering Professional Insight
A big congratulations to the #DucatiLenovoTeam for becoming the 2021 @MotoGP Team World Champion! #ForzaDucati! https://t.co/tXHb00IGSC
— Yuanqing Yang (@YuanqingYang) November 15, 2021
With more than 53.7k followers, Yang has built an engaged and dedicated fanbase on Twitter as well. Taking a similar strategy, he uses this platform to share timely Lenovo updates, such as company innovations, new releases, and leadership updates. He is thoughtful about what he chooses to post, ensuring that the majority of the content he shares is connected to Lenovo.
An example of his effective online strategy can be seen in the following post:
Had a fantastic week at Lenovo's hybrid global leadership team meeting! As always, it's great to meet as one team and have energetic discussions.
I left feeling confident about Lenovo's plans to accelerate our growth through technology innovation and business model upgrades! pic.twitter.com/EkuS0zSxDr
— Yuanqing Yang (@YuanqingYang) October 22, 2021
In the Tweet above, Yang highlights his leadership team and how they are critical to meeting Lenovo’s ambitious goals of innovating and advancing technology. In doing so, he shows the kind of leadership that people want to see while also acknowledging the people who help make the company’s success possible. Additionally, showcasing his core leadership team is an effective way to visualize how big his team is. Showing the people working behind the brand helps humanize the company by giving social media users recognizable faces.
Room for improvement: Hashtag Strategy
Although Yang has a healthy and engaged audience across both platforms, there is room for improvements to further strengthen his online presence. He can begin to implement best practices to improve engagement and traffic to his content. For instance, while he makes use of branded hashtags, such as #LenovoRising, he doesn’t use hashtags that are related to the content he is sharing.
Based on his recent posts, some examples of more general hashtags that could have been used in his content include #innovation, #sustainable, and #leadership. These are examples of hashtags that have a large following on LinkedIn. Branded hashtags are effective in building brand awareness but tend to have fewer followers and won’t contribute as much to increasing post traffic.
Yuanqing Yang, a thought leader in the tech industry
Yang is a well-known and established leader in the tech industry and everything he shares on social media has a strategic purpose. He is not using LinkedIn and Twitter to share every detail about his life; rather he is a leader who uses his platforms to further the company he leads. This type of strategy works well for executives who aren’t interested in sharing their personal life online.
Executives like Yuanqing Yang highlight how platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter can be used strategically to elevate a company’s online presence. He makes Lenovo the star every time he posts, and in doing so, he adds to the brand’s narrative and ensures it stays relevant for years to come.
Our team has worked with executives across several industries, including finance, tech, and more. What we’ve found is that engagement rates tend to be higher when content is shared by an executive rather than the company’s social media page. Click the button below to speak with our social media marketing experts on how we can help position your online content!