Chief Executive Blogger
CEOs are chosen based on a perceived ability to bring about future profitability and maximize shareholder returns for the corporations they lead. With the advent of blogs and social media, a new and important question arises for corporate leadership: Can the CEO candidate properly represent the corporation online?
A chief executive officer’s duties include acting as the official spokesperson and “face,” so to speak, of a corporation. Whether launching a product or service line, hiring a top officer, announcing earnings expectations and results, or any other move a corporation makes, the move is generally accompanied by a public statement from the CEO.
With the advent of blogs, online networks, and social media such as Twitter, and the great speed at which communications on these channels occurs, the ability to blog or tweet has taken on a new magnitude in corporate communications, especially in crises such as the braking and acceleration problems on Toyota’s SUVs or BP’s responsibility for the Gulf Coast oil spill. Yet only a handful of current CEOs blog or tweet at all, and even fewer do so on a regular basis.
George Colony, Chief Executive Officer of Forrester Research, predicts that within 15 years, CEOs will need to be well acquainted with the ins and outs of new media, social networking and associated communities as a requirement of the job. And they can’t leave the work to lower-level corporate personnel.
Colony suggests that CEOs should blog four to eight times and tweet 12 to 24 times annually, at a minimum. Marketers can provide what Colony calls “social Cliff Notes” and a “social light strategy” with a six-month test. In order to keep readers coming back, they should know that the blog will be updated infrequently rather than on a daily basis, and the CEO must have something of value to say to his or her audience that is thought-provoking and somewhat controversial. Colony also advises that CEOs have an editor double check the copy before it is posted online.
Given the need for CEOs to be on top of corporate communications with the world at large, it is curious that many don’t. Some feel that they just don’t have the time or still carry true concerns about the revelation of trade secrets and other confidential matters online. But there are two things that no CEO can afford to do regarding online communications: 1) ignore them entirely and 2) be dismissive about what readers of tweets and blogs have to say about the corporation. To do that can cause the corporation to lose touch with its target markets, garner bad publicity, and lose market share and profits to its competitors—a trifecta of adverse effects—all due to poor leadership.
So the verdict is in: CEOs who cannot—for whatever reason—communicate well for the corporation they lead will ultimately fail to do their jobs and shall remain responsible for the consequences. The most effective and respected CEOs are those who take the time to reach out to the communities of the world, both physical and online—and do it well.
