StrAIT Blogging

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Update: 9/15/09

Just in:  Hard data on the use of social media by executives.  Get the study here.  You can also download the document on our Files page.

My thanks to Suzanne Adnams.  Her profile is here.  See her blog here.  She has been the most helpful contributor to my research.

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I recently posted the same question to a number of LinkedIn Groups as I have already posted here in my own blog. See “Using Social Media to Communicate with Executives“. There have been few responses to my question. However, I have received a few responses. I also received feedback during networking events that I found useful. I just responded to a recent reply and wanted to share it here. It has helped me to clarify my strategy and may be useful for you as well.

Recently, I was at an American Marketing Association luncheon were I talked with a young lady with firsthand experience. Her firm studies and advises clients on the topic. Based on what she and others have told me I now have a working model to use in my business. I segment my marketplace into two distinct groups. The first group is manufacturing and manufacturing related service companies (my primary market). The other group is composed of service companies not directly connected to manufacturing, like marketing, sales, technology services, etc (my secondary market). For the primary group LinkedIn is the most used tool, Facebook is occasionally used and Twitter isn’t a player. Even LinkedIn is used only in a fairly passive way. My secondary market is somewhat more active in social networking because there is a higher percentage of younger leadership.

Consequently, my strategy is simple. For me social networking tools can be somewhat useful as marketing tools but not as communication tools during engagements. In an era where senior executives have email enabled phones, plain old email is still the best choice for project related communications. Social media will be reserved for marketing related activities. I am already using collaborative technologies for engagements so there is nothing to change in that area.

Actually, this strategy is a confirmation of what I already believed. I just wanted to gather enough information to be more objective than just my “gut”. However, if I get a landslide of responses tomorrow to the contrary I do reserve the right to rethink my strategy. Given the level of responses so far I don’t anticipate any landslides.

For context the forum response is shown below:

“Mike – you raise a very interesting question, and I suspect from the lack of responses to date that there aren’t any clear answers to your dilemma, and that others may be posing the same question for the same reasons. I don’t have a clear answer to your question, but I do have some observations.

Fundamentally, there may be a disconnect between the role and function or ‘social’ technologies versus the type of service that it enables. To me, the disconnect is aptly illustrated by the confusing use of the terms ‘social media’ and ‘social networking’ – which I believe to be two different, but related concepts.
We can see the challenge through attempts that many companies have had to introduce collaboration software (eg. Sharepoint) into their environments – even though everyone thinks its a good idea, getting everyone to use it is another matter! If organizations have this level of difficulty getting participation within a relatively controlled workgroup (ie. employees), I don’t think there’s much chance of achieving compliance with a group of independent, external clients.

If you want to use this type of communication within your business, you may want to pursue ‘social media’, which in my definition is focused on promoting, marketing and branding your business/services to constituents. As these technologies mature, and become more pervasive in their use within business, then gradually there will be more uptake at a senior level. For now, though, the ‘closed’ two-way communication that would be appropriate for executive clients relating to specific work does not fit into the ‘open’, one-way communications that is typical of social networking and social media interactions.”

Your question would fall into what I would define as the ‘social networking’ category. If I may paraphrase: How can you use new forms of communications provided by social networking services such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. as part of your communications strategy and plan with executive sponsors? The answer, as simplistic as it sounds, is that these channels are simply extensions of any normal communications plan, and need to be considered in the same light. If the constituency with whom you are dealing uses these services, then there may be an opportunity to integrate those into your communications, but that’s a big IF. For the most part, most business-focused activity will take place via professional-level services such as LinkedIn, with Twitter or Facebook perceived as primarily personal/recreational services. None of these, however, are designed for the type of business communications that you are considering. Although it would be possible to create a FB page or a LinkedIn group specific to a given project, and limit access to that information to only approved members, it is much more challenging to get executives to change their habits to use it.

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