I read a great story in Forbes this morning called “CEOs Afraid Of Going Social Are Doing Shareholders A Massive Disservice”, and how very poignant the article was. It describes how a great proportion of company CEO’s and leaders are ignoring social media, both from them directly engaging with their customers, staff, and influencers in building a one-to-one relationship, but they are also ignoring social media as a tool to help their company grow by not “leading from above”.
A great quote from the article is “Social media isn’t a passing fad. The primary reason you have to be social is because that is where your customer lives.” This quote should be a slap in the face wake up call, but no matter how many times I mention/promote/evangelise social media to leaders, influencers, and marketers they just don’t get it. In fact many are downright against using this form of communication – which is bizarre beyond words. I continually hear the mantra that leaders want to be innovative to help transform their business, to help grow their business, to help increase EBIT, but they continue to be ignorant of the raw power of social media and its wide-spread adoption by all sections of the community.
CEO’s and leaders choose to ignore social media at their peril. Customers have already adapted and are already very social media savvy, and are finding the “old school” companies irrelevant – and have taken their business elsewhere. Soon enough this realisation will happen at the shareholder level too – and some very tough questions to the board and executive leadership teams will be asked at annual general meetings.
The bottom line is:
- CEO’s and leaders are out of touch and irrelevant if they ignore social media. They need to personally start “being social”.
- Companies will increasingly become out-of-touch and irrelevant to their customers if they don’t start a social media conversation. And if they don’t it will have a direct EBIT impact.
CEO.com and Domo have produced this great infographic on the topic:
