social media

3 Things CEOs Should Never Lose Sight of in Social Media

This is a guest post from Lisa Petrilli.

I just spent two full days in a phenomenal leadership simulation program entitled, ?Magnetic Leadership? that was conceived, created and offered by Profitability Business Simulations.

I had the privilege of playing the role of the customer throughout the simulation, and then coaching the teams and their leaders after each simulation round was completed.

During each round, one person on each team was appointed ?CEO? and was responsible for determining the overall direction and strategy for their team of eight people.

They had one hour to prepare the team for the 10-minute, high-stress simulation in which they were given a business challenge along with a fickle customer (me) and tasked with meeting the challenge while satisfying the customer.

Three Overarching CEO Success Principles

There were three overarching principles that were critical to the CEOs? success that surfaced during the simulation.

As I was reflecting on how I would talk with my leadership-focused clients about how the experience confirmed the importance of these principles, I realized that it was imperative to talk with my social media clients about the experience as well.

Why?

Because these principles are such that they must be communicated and absorbed throughout the entire organization, so that the company can exude them and live them on a daily basis. As a critical part of marketing, sales, business development and customer relationship building, employees on the front lines of social media must also exude and live these principles through their work.

Vision

As someone committed to ?visionary leadership? I was thrilled to see how the high-ranking leaders I was working with understood the importance of vision to their success, and how they got better over the 2-day experience at clarifying and communicating their vision:

“In an organization, those individuals on the front line of social media must clearly understand the vision for the organization in order to exude that vision when talking, and sharing content with, customers.”

For example, though Patagonia does not have a formal vision statement, it shares its vision when it writes about its ?Reason for Being:?

?Patagonia grew out of a small company that made tools for climbers. Alpinism remains at the heart of a worldwide business that still makes clothes for climbing ? as well as for skiing, snowboarding, surfing, fly fishing, paddling and trail running. These are all silent sports. None requires a motor; none delivers the cheers of a crowd. In each sport, reward comes in the form of hard-won grace and moments of connection between us and nature?
For us at Patagonia, a love of wild and beautiful places demands participation in the fight to save them, and to help reverse the steep decline in the overall environmental health of our planet.?

Patagonia?s vision is to enable its customers to experience that hard-won grace and moments of connection with nature, and to express its love of wild and beautiful places by saving them.

Now see how Patagonia?s social media efforts further their vision to enable customers to experience that hard-won grace and those moments of connection with nature?especially the wild and beautiful places.

From Patagonia’s Facebook Page:

Picture Story: Conditions
Another in our occasional series of posts for the more visually oriented. This one goes out to all those lucky enough to charge off the couch and into the unknown without looking back or thinking twice . . . or doing much thinking at all, for that matter.

And from Twitter:

It?s clear to me that Patagonia employees immersed in social media understand the company?s vision and how critical it is to share it, and inspire through it, via what they communicate.

Values

It was striking how in such short leadership simulations one?s personal and leadership values became so immediately obvious.

For example, whether or not a leader valued the input of others was demonstrated by how well they listened, because there?s a difference between asking for someone?s opinion ?to appease that person? and asking because you truly want to know. Of course, this is just one of so many ways to demonstrate values.

It?s critical that CEOs not lose sight of the fact that the values that are rewarded in the organization are those that will ultimately be imbued in conversations with, and content shared with, customers socially.

Contrast the fact that I worked with a client who would not allow me to tweet birthday wishes from the organization?s Twitter account to some of our most loyal and active members, with the following, recent tweets from Patagonia:

Which organization would you naturally gravitate toward; the one that allows itself to be human and places value on sharing the human experience or the one that believes doing so just isn?t professional?

Value Proposition

Your company?s value proposition is what sets you apart from your competition; what makes you unique and provides that niche in which you cannot be rivaled.? For Apple and Disney it?s about customer experience while for Walmart it?s low cost and for Nordstrom it?s service.

If Disney social media employees tweeted about low-cost tickets to Disney World or asked Facebook fans to share stories about how to explore the park on a budget, it simply wouldn?t fit with the brand?s value proposition.

Rather, you see tweets about unique customer experiences that cannot be had anywhere but Disney World:

And yet, without guidance and clear communication from the CEO, employees immersed in social media might make the mistake of expressing the company in ways that are in direct contrast to its value proposition.

It is the CEO?s responsibility to ensure that all employees understand the vision, values and value proposition (amongst other things!) that the company is committed to, to be their head steward, and to never lose sight of how critical it is to align these principles with their company?s social media efforts.

If you?re in the C-suite of your company, ask yourself if you?ve communicated your vision, values and value proposition well enough so that employees in social media roles may do their jobs to the best of their ability and are empowered for success. If not, you run the risk that what they share socially may not be aligned strategically!
If you?re in a social media role and you realize you?re not clear on these principles and priorities, make sure you ask and get clear direction!

Your thoughts?

About the author:?Lisa Petrilli?is Chief Executive Officer of C-Level Strategies, Inc. and is passionate about visionary leadership. She helps C-suite executives and emerging leaders create strong visions for their companies and for themselves, and then bring these visions to fruition with clear and aligned strategies focused on leadership, marketing, and social media. You can find her on Twitter @LisaPetrilli and running #LeadershipChat every Tuesday night at 8pm ET, and she welcomes your emails at?Lisa@CLevelStrategies.com.

image: Joelk75

The Zen of Social Media

This is a guest post by Stuart Mills.

“Social media is a great way to tell the world what you?re thinking before you?ve had a chance to think about it.” – Chris Pirillo

Have you ever heard of that old saying, “You can take the ‘x’ out of the ‘y’, but you can’t take the ‘y’ out of the ‘x'”?

It implies to social media a lot.

How many people do you know have Facebook? Or Twitter? Or even that old-time favourite, Myspace? Or the more focused ones such as StumbleUpon, Digg, or Delicious? Is it a lot? I bet it is.

Ever since I started my website, I’ve come across so many different ways of connecting, it’s unreal. I could send the same message to you in a hundred different ways. I won’t, but the fact that the potential is there indicates that we are never more connected than we are now. The choice is mind-boggling.

A lot of the ways we can communicate is by social media. I could send you a Tweet, a Like, or a Stumble, and we could get our communication on (if you know what each of those terms mean, then consider yourself connected!). But I must ask now, do we really need all of this? Really?

Facebook Dilemma

I’ve recently had a couple of experiences with Facebook that I feel must be mentioned, as I believe they are examples of the ‘Facebook effect’ on people.

First, myself and my girlfriend were involved in a minor argument about a comment that was left on my Facebook page by someone we know. It was all meant in jest, yet the whole thing got a little out of hand. Its settled now, but you can still look and find the post on my Facebook profile here, and the comments following it.

This is the first time I’ve been involved in ‘Facebook fury’, and it wasn’t a very nice thing to sort out.

The second experience is to do with my Facebook page. I decided to delete the Unlock The Door Facebook page because it wasn’t serving me well. In fact, it was becoming more of a distraction, as it wasn’t growing as fast as my Twitter account, and there wasn’t much interaction taking place at all.

So now, all of my Facebook activity will be concentrated onto my Facebook profile. I believe this will make things simpler for me.

So what does this all mean? It means that Facebook has recently gotten out of hand for me, and I’ve now taken steps to reduce my Facebook activity, and focus more on Twitter as my main social media outlet. I like Twitter, it’s fun, informative, and it just seems a lot more professional.

But what it also means is that I needed to minimise my social media exposure.

Less Is More

I prefer to liken social media to a whirlpool. It looks fun but it can suck you in without ever letting you go. Before you know it, you’ve just spent those two hours in the morning, which you were going to spend on your website, checking out other profiles on Facebook, and tweeting the latest Charlie Sheen rant. It’s a waste.

Why do you do it?

Why waste those hours doing something which, at the most, might get a couple of cheap laughs? Social media can do that to you, it can turn you into a mindless, pointless status-uploading, zombie. I know, because some of them are my Facebook friends.

How can you get out of this? Simple, cut it back. Social media can become an addiction just like alcohol, drugs, and smoking. Excessive amounts are bad for you, we all know this, but it doesn’t make it any easier when you’re trying to log off from your profile but you just can’t bring yourself to do it!

Cut back on your addiction. Go cold turkey if you have to. I recall Steve Pavlina going on a 30 day Facebook fast after being an active user for two years. You can read his results here. I’m sure you’ll be as surprised as I was at what he learned.

The same applies for any other social media outlet that you find yourself addicted to, as it’s not just Facebook.

Some people are addicted to endless retweeting, others like to click the ‘stumble’ button just for the hell of it. Cut back on these outlets. Disconnect your internet. Banish your computer if you have to, but however you do it, just take a break. Get your head out of the social media sand and look up to the sky. Look around you. You know what you see?

It’s life! Life is waiting for you if you only get away from your social media and embrace it.

Purposeful Social Media

Of course, I don’t advocate that you dispel social media entirely. Some of it is actually quite useful.

Want to share something new that your business/website/yourself has introduced? Use Twitter to tweet about it. Or advertise it on Digg. You can reach a shed load of people in seconds by using a social media outlet, and this is good. This is very practical, and has many uses, but it has to be purposeful.

Why use social media if not for a good reason? Are you just using social media because everyone else is using it? Rubbish, that means you are a sheep, as you are following everyone else and doing what they say is good for you. I’ve been a sheep before, when MySpace was hip and cool, but never again. If I use social media, it will be for my benefit and purpose, not for anyone elses.

Our man Danny Brown wrote a post not too long ago about the philosophy of social media, and what it can mean beyond the trivial conversations and noise. I implore you to check it out here, and learn that social media can be so much more than boring tweets and likes, and it can be a completely different experience for you.

If you let it.

Why Social Media?

Social media is meant to help you by letting you help others. That’s the ulterior, moralistic motive of social media, yet somehow it’s transformed into a hideous, blabbering, tweeting atrocity of a monster. It’s awful to think about it, so the best thing you can do is not to let yourself get sucked into the monstrous whirlpool.

Use social media for your own uses, and help others in order to help yourself. And if you find yourself getting sucked in? Breathe, turn off the internet, and gain a little perspective. The monster is still ugly behind all that make-up.

About the author: Stuart Mills is an experienced writer who wants to help you improve at life. He thinks you?re awesome. You can often find him here, where he writes constantly to make it a better day for everyone, and you can subscribe here. You can also follow Stuart on Twitter at @theunlockeddoor.

image: SilverLunace
image: artbymags

Making Time for Conversation

My friend and business partner Troy wrote a great piece yesterday about whether or not technology has improved or hindered our communication skills. It’s a timely topic with some awesome comments, and well worth the read.

It reminded me of something that happened a couple of years ago, that was a perfect example of the point Troy makes.

My wife had taken me to Niagara Falls for my 40th birthday, and it was truly amazing, awe-inspiring, majestic ? all these words and more that I would have thought were being over-expressive had I not seen the Falls for myself. So yeah, the Falls were simply amazing.

While we were there, we had some time to kill on the last day before catching our train, and so we did a bit of walking. After 2-3 hours, we thought it?d be nice to relax and have a break. So we found a food court with a bunch of empty tables and sat down. This is where I found myself wondering how we really are as communicators and conversationalists.

While my wife was at the ladies room, this elderly lady came in and bought herself an ice cream. She looked as if she may be about 70-80 years old, and she was by herself. She had a wedding ring on her wedding finger, yet as I say she was alone. And that got me thinking.

Was she alone because her husband was simply at home having a restful day? Or was she alone because her husband had already passed away, and she was simply whiling away her time? If that was the case, did she have any family? Did she have any friends that she could spend time with? And if so, why weren?t any of them with her now?

This led to another train of thought ? perhaps she had no-one to turn to. Perhaps she was at that age where all her friends had either passed away as time caught them up, or were infirm and in an old people?s home. This thought saddened me.

Friendly or “Friends”?

Every day, I talk to strangers that I?ve never met via the likes of Twitter, or Facebook, or via comment boxes on blogs. I discuss everything and anything with people on the other side of the world, and don?t think twice about starting a conversation with them, because I see them as “friends”.

Yet I couldn?t strike up a conversation with a lonely-looking old lady who may have really appreciated the company.

Have we really come so far as to only communicate via technology now? Has the art of real conversation died, or is it still there? Do we need the facade of technology to allow us to open up to people?

I couldn?t help but think of that lady on the way home, and of the missed opportunity to offer some company for even just a short while. I?m sure it would have been easy enough for my wife and I to ask if anyone was sitting beside her and strike up a conversation ? but we didn?t. And I feel bad about that.

So here?s?the thing. The next time I?m in a similar situation, I?m going to strike up that conversation. I?d rather be gently refused than to not speak at all. After all, it?s easy enough on Twitter ? surely real life should be the same?

image: JKonig