Leadership is as important on social media as anywhere else. With social media so prominent in our lives, it’s critical that leaders set examples on social media in terms of how to act, how to respond, and what to post. It’s important to use social media ethically for business, responsibly for fundraising, and correctly for job hiring and relationship building.
So, what does leadership look like on social media? After attending countless social media conferences, speaking to many groups and organizations, teaching social media classes, and talking with many others in the industry, we’ve compiled a list. The following is the best from our team and others with a vested interest in growing leaders. Let it serve as a guideline for deeper thought and discussion about personal and professional social media use. If you have something you’d add to this list or change, please follow up on our Facebook page.
- Leaders are transparent on social media; consistent with company culture, beliefs, values, policies.
- Leaders show up and find balance on social media.
- Leaders listen first.
- Leaders bring value; they are helpful, useful, timely, and interesting.
- Leaders are trustworthy and often not afraid to be industry experts; provide information not fluff.
- Leaders know and understand the difference between getting personal on social media and being personable on social media.
- Leaders are engaging.
- Leaders make things super-duper easy for others; easy to find, easy to understand, easy to navigate, easy to reply, easy to contribute.
- Leaders provide staff and co-workers with social media guidelines and encourage others to be involved; often willing to step aside of the limelight to let others shine.
- Leaders are consistent with messaging and branding; they communicate with others so social media efforts don’t appear to be going on in a vacuum. When someone else answers a phone or front counter, they are not surprised by a customer about what has been said, shared, or promised on social media.
- Leaders reach out to others within their organization for ideas. They also reach outside their organization to vertical industries that mutually benefit from lifting each other up.
- Leaders know the rules of the social media platform they are using.
- Leaders never use any content they do not have rights to; photos, copy, graphics, etc.
- Leaders don’t assume Facebook or any social media platform will be here in a year or more. They create their own assets like websites and mailing lists that they build upon with social media.
- Leaders do not pass along anything that they don’t know to be the truth.
- Leaders do not interrupt social media conversations with irrelevancy.
- Leaders do not use social media only for a sales medium or news dissemination device.
What would you add to this list of what leadership looks like on social media?
