5 Gems CEOs Can Share With Their Social Media Team!

CEO Exclusive Radio Update From Soyini Coke
February 24, 2015

radio show soyini Hello everyone! Today’s show uncovers how CEOs build an effective social media team they can trust. I hosted the show with guest Corey Perlman, Social Media Speaker and bestselling author of eBoot Camp. Wendy Johnson, CEO of Dale Carnegie of Georgia, joined us. Listen in today to hear how a trusted advisor relationship is born and cultivated. These experts have relationships with many Fortune 500 companies. They deliver everything from social media consulting to customized development training programs for employees. How do they get it right? They open up to our listeners and provide invaluable high quality knowledge you won’t hear anywhere else. These impressive leaders commit to giving their clients value, results, but most of all– trust. Can you trust your social media experts? Find out here on: CEO Exclusive RADIO.

Listen to a short clip on SoundCloud

Here are this week’s takeaways from the show:

Today, budget-conscious CEOs wonder if they are maximizing their Social Media plan and if it is in the right hands. My guests gave us some guidance below on how to assess along the way. Need to know if your social media team is set to deliver results? It may be time to hire a trusted advisor. Here’s why:

Request an audit of all your social media sites and your social media employee capabilities. Outdated content will not do you any good. Someone may have created a site for you years ago of which you may no longer even be aware. For example, an account with only a handful of relations or a “newest” post that is over six months old can actually be damaging to your social media presence. It may be best to delete that account and stick to a venue you can post to every week. Wendy Johnson, our guest with Dale Carnegie of Georgia, suggests an audit of your employees as well. Smaller companies may have an inexperienced intern or a relative handling social media. You may want to identify high-potential employees and order training programs for them.
Choose the venue that will connect with your audience best, rather than jump on every social media platform that comes out. Social media has become a moving target. Perlman suggests, “Find out what the demographic profile is and where your target market is. These sites are critical for success”. Giants like Facebook and Google+ are ever changing. Social community platforms that already cater to your target market are a better bet and save your company money. To build stability, you may need to bring in an outside team to perform market research and identify those communities for you.
Have your team collaborate on a “content Bible”. Set aside monthly time to address content or you will find it a “content battle”. Another great Perlman tip is to make a list of the FAQs fans pose and create content around those. Update your content list as the inspiration comes. The content created offers use for short posts in other media and well worth the efforts. Perlman’s company creates a blog post for Wendy and re-purposes it to email, newsletters, etc. People who read her email don’t read her blog and vice versa. Content creation is one of the hardest areas of social media to master. If your media isn’t in creative hands you trust, you may need to bring in a master at content creation.
Hold only engaged employees in your social media department. Negativity can be far reaching. Wendy Johnson reminded us that upwards of 10,000 boomers retire each day. Many are not equipped to transfer their knowledge. “So this is what it is today, whether you are a small company or a big company, you have to be very sure what your succession plan is. So companies need to engage their employees, they need to be sure that they are properly trained, they are feeling valued. Disengaged workers are costing billions of dollars to the market. A disengaged employee can affect top line sales, bottom line sales, client retention. A disengaged employee does not do anything extra. They… pass on information that brings morale down. It just costs a company a million dollars and nothing else.”
Get a trusted advisor. Social media is all about customer engagement. If done right, customer engagement leads to a competitive edge, sales growth and profits. If you or your team are not social media savvy, it may hurt your company’s bottom line. If time for customer/employee engagement and content creation is scarce, you may be setting yourself up for a loss. If you don’t follow social media trends, a trusted advisor can put you on the most time and cost effective path. There is so much to choose from that you will need to be confident they have your back. They represent you and your company. It’s more than a business function–it has to be a relationship.

Hear the entire show for the rest of my guests’ killer takes on social media. They discuss trends for Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, and more. Tune in to learn how to build strong social media relationships that work.

Soyini Coke hosts CEO Exclusive Radio. She is the Founder and Managing Principal of Annona Enterprises. The weekly show provides CEOs with information about business and market trends. Guests share insider tips on who they turn to when they are looking for sound, business advice.

If you’d like to be a guest on the show contact info@annonaenterprises.com