If your answer to this post’s title is a saddening “NO,” then it’s time to start looking for another job. Unless your chief executive sees the wisdom of engaging with contacts and connections for your leads database and contact list through social media, then your company is as good as yesterday’s news. Social media isn’t just a passing fad; it’s actually becoming inseparably woven into the fabric of our daily personal and professional lives.
The only item on the plus side of your CEO still not going social is that he or she isn’t alone. In fact, 92.4% of Fortune 500 CEOs are still not on Facebook while a staggering 70% of large company chief executives don’t have any social media presence at all. This is according to data released by Domo.
However, your social media-disengaged CEO will soon find him/herself on the endangered species list as more and more chief executives begin seeing the light. IBM’s Global CEO Study reveals that, within five years’ time, CEOs’ social media involvement will considerably increase to include 57% of chief executives by that time. Right now, around 20.6% of CEOs are networking in and leveraging LinkedIn.
If there’s any advice you’d have to give your boss, it would be to go social. To help build your case, here are some relevant facts about social media:
1. Platform for brand awareness. Around 2 out of 10 from the 1,709 chief executives surveyed in the IBM Global CEO Study say social media is an ideal platform for promoting and building brand awareness for both B2C and B2B formats. Many experts point out that social media is an excellent channel for providing the brand experience that products/services and companies have to offer.
2. Understanding customers. The availability of usable customer-related data on social platforms makes these channels ideal marketing/sales intelligence investments. Approximately, 73% of CEOs say that allocating resources to draw meaningful insights about customers is among their top priority. Social media proves its worth in this regard with the depth and breadth of the information obtainable from this channel which can later be compiled into their CRM database, targeted contact list, leads database, etc.
3. Engaging with other companies. A majority of CEOs view social media as a means to engage with other organizations such as suppliers and other partners. About 53% of CEOs surveyed by IBM rated this ability to be their top motivation for adopting social media tools. Social media doesn’t only bring people together but companies as well.
4. Promoting openness and collaboration. As much as 75% of CEOs think that collaborative skills are the most important employee characteristics in order to thrive in a more complex business environment. Accordingly, 52% of CEOs cite enhanced internal collaboration and information sharing as their main considerations for adopting social media platforms.
5. Crowd-sourcing ideas. With over half the population now engaged in social media, it’s no surprise why chief executives are looking to this platform as a means to source fresh insights and ideas. Not only does social media provide a vast quantity for potential sources of ideas but quality as well with a diverse ocean of thoughts to fish in.
6. Gaining the competitive edge. Social media isn’t only useful in generating short-term results like building a targeted B2B leads database; it’s also an excellent tool for companies in gaining the competitive edge in today’s marketing and business environment. Around 30% of firms that outperform their rivals attribute their success to openness and collaboration which, as we’ve seen above, can also be traced back to increased use of social media.
Quite bold for you to suggest to leave the company if the boss is not on social media !