YOUR Social Media Leadership Presence?

5 Ways leaders can create a productive presence on social media..

Far too many business leaders have the mistaken idea that social media isn’t worth their time. In fact, roughly 60 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs have no personal accounts on any of six major social networks. And no presence means no engagement, which is a huge missed opportunity for leaders and their businesses.

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Social media isn’t just a time suck. With the right strategy, it’s a valuable tool that can build brands and cultivate credibility. And if you’re using content marketing in any way, social media is a must.

Leaders who are active on social media can broaden the reach of their company’s message and play a critical role in content distribution. A social media presence is also a two-way street, and it can help you keep a finger on the pulse of your industry while connecting with brand advocates and critics alike and humanizing your brand.

A productive social media account isn’t an accident — it takes a little bit of intuition and a lot of intention to use social media to its full potential. Take advantage of free social media tools and start with these five steps, and you’ll be well on your way.

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1. Stick To A Schedule

One of the biggest reasons business leaders avoid social media is the difficulty in pinpointing a starting place. While there are tons of platforms out there, chances are that only a few make sense for your brand. For instance, if you’re a leader of a B2B company, then you might prioritize looking into LinkedIn over Instagram.

Once you’ve decided on the right platform (or two), work with your marketing team to create a posting schedule and stick to it. Start with a goal that’s easy to accomplish, such as one or two posts each week.

A tool like Buffer or Hootsuite can help you plan out your posts in advance to ensure you don’t forget to post when you inevitably get busy in the future.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Time Management Strategy?

2. Cultivate A Conversation

So many people view social as just another channel for pushing out their message, but I’d challenge you to change your mindset. Much of social media’s potential comes from the ability to start a conversation with followers, including brand advocates and even critics.

Instead of looking at it as some sort of online billboard, look at social media as a tool for building meaningful relationships.

If you’ve ever met another human being, you’ll know that forming a connection requires listening to people and responding authentically to their questions and comments. With social media, you can do this on an incredible scale.

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3. Create Your Own Content

If you’re somewhat new to social media, then you’re probably more comfortable sharing other people’s content than creating and sharing your own. It’s an easy trap to fall into. It can be difficult to put yourself out there, but tapping into your voice and creating your own content to share can help you garner more engagement and make your efforts more valuable.

Try to publish original content at least once a month, and you’ll find you get better at recognizing a good post. Maybe a conversation with an employee or prospect will trigger an idea for a piece of content. Maybe during an evening in with family, your kid will say something that makes you feel proud and inspires an idea for a more personal post. Good content will begin to come more naturally over time, and creating and posting that content might even become something you look forward to.

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4. Learn To Love LinkedIn

As a business leader, you’re probably already on LinkedIn, so it should be pretty easy to start maximizing it. Publish your own original writing on its publishing platform and share content you find interesting or informative. You can also participate in groups and conversations with experts and influencers in other fields and learn skills that are highly relevant when it comes to building your business.

LinkedIn features powerful tools such as the Sales Navigator and LinkedIn for Small Business, but I’d encourage you to learn to walk before you run. Start by getting used to connecting with potential contacts and maintaining an active presence in the community. Only then should you start utilizing paid tools.

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5. Optimize And Adjust

Social media is an excellent way to build your brand and your business, but like any marketing effort, you need to pursue specific goals so you can define metrics that indicate success. Fortunately, digital marketing can offer transparent measurements of ROI.

Dive into the data and determine what behaviors are the most valuable to you. If you’re looking to generate awareness about your brand, you might be after social shares. Likes and clicks are sometimes labeled as vanity metrics, but they can help you measure engagement, and you can actually determine what those clicks are worth if your analytics are set up properly.

Guest Authored By John Hall. John is the CEO of Influence & Co., a keynote speaker, and the author of "Top of Mind." You can book John to speak here. Follow John on Twitter.

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"Compared to the countless calls and meetings that can clutter your calendar and consume your attention, social media might not seem like a priority. But the truth is, you as a leader need to play a role in your social media presence — for the sake of your brand and your business. Hopefully, these five steps give you a place to start.." -JohnHall

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  Post Crafted By:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Salt Lake City, UT. where I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

Robots Fix YOUR Social Media Reputation?

This AI Platform Helps Jobseekers Fix Their Social Media Reputation

Employers are using AI to scour social media to eliminate applicants for open jobs. Now you too can use AI to buff up your online presence..

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Most people know that posting a booze-soaked selfie on a public social media feed is ill-advised, especially if they are planning to ever look for a job.

But did you know that cracking a joke about calling in sick can also hurt your chances of landing a sought-after position?

That's because AI is at work in many employers' recruiting efforts. "People don't realize that screening algorithms don't have a sense of humor," says Patrick Ambron, CEO of BrandYourself, a reputation management software firm. "What this means is that jokes about skipping work to watch Netflix could get flagged as potentially harmful."

The number of employers using social media to screen candidates is at an all-time high, according to a CareerBuilder survey of 2,380 hiring and human resource managers. Seventy percent of employers use social media to screen candidates, up from 11% in 2006. More than half (54%) said they wouldn't hire someone based on what they saw on the candidate's social feeds.

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Some companies are even outsourcing the scouring of candidates' online presence, like Los Angeles-based Fama Technologies, which offers an AI software tool that helps them screen out undesirable applicants.

In a report for CNBC, Fama CEO and cofounder Ben Mones were less interested in uncovering recreational alcohol use and the like, rather they want to make sure they're not hiring bullies or bigots. "Employers are looking for folks who don't think that misogynistic comment is wrong," he said.

Candid posts that use vulgar or insensitive language are clear red flags. In addition, slang usage and unprofessional "funny" posts have been frequently flagged as troubling for hiring managers," Ambron concurs.

Related Article: Social Media - To Share And NOT To Share?

Using AI To Make You Your Best (Online) Self

While algorithms can be humorless when it comes to reading status updates, BrandYourself's AI claims it uses the same no-nonsense approach to ferreting out problematic content.

Ambron contends that its software goes deep (in some cases up to 10 years) into search engine results, social media posts, images and video content that you posted or were tagged in, and then gives the candidate recommendations of negative content to remove. For an annual fee of $99, says Ambron, the software will continue to monitor your social platforms and online presence, and alert you if anything new shows up that needs your attention.

Among the problematic content, CareerBuilder identified the most common deal breakers, including provocative or inappropriate photographs, videos, or information, drinking or using drugs, posting discriminatory comments related to race, gender, religion, and bad-mouthing their previous company or fellow employee.

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Does it ever really go away? Ambron says that depends on what kind of offending information it is.

"If it's simply a poorly judged social media post, you can hopefully delete it right away, which minimizes the chances of it being flagged during an employment screening," he explains. Employers don't have access to deleted tweets or FB status updates unless they had a legal subpoena or if someone took a screenshot.

"If it's something in Google that hasn't been deleted, they can still find it," he says, "but it's much less likely and will have a smaller impact on the impression you make." Still he cautions that a negative Google result that someone else wrote about you to harm you such as a review, news article, or a slanderous post or image, could take months to bury with more accurate, positive information.

"The idea is that if there's negative information out there about you (like an ex bashing you online), you want to surround it with more accurate information that better represents your personality, professionalism, and overall brand," he explains. This strategy takes both time and maintenance, Ambron admits.

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For instance, a Google search for a former high-level Disney, AOL, and AG Interactive executive who is a pioneer in the VR world used to yield multiple results for a singer-songwriter by the same name before any of his own work showed up. Populating a website, LinkedIn profile, Twitter, and Medium accounts with regular, quality content about his expertise changed the game. Now a search has him as the first result on the first page.

The same CareerBuilder survey found that 44% of employers found social content that supported making a hire. Among the primary reasons were that their experience and expertise shone through social and that they presented great communication skills and creativity. An older survey from CareerBuilder emphasizes the importance of such soft skills. Among 2,600 hiring managers and HR professionals, 71% said they valued emotional intelligence over IQ overall.

Guest Authored By Lydia Dishman. Lydia is a reporter writing about the intersection of tech, leadership, and innovation. She is a regular contributor to Fast Company and has written for CBS Moneywatch, Fortune, The Guardian, Popular Science, and the New York Times, among others. Follow Lydia on Twitter.

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"In a tight job market..

Jobseekers who demonstrate a sterling online presence by communicating professionally, showcasing their expertise, and interacting with a variety of people on social media will be more in demand than ever.." -LydiaDishman

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  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

YOUR Business Killing Inspirational Quotes?

If you're a leader or trying to become one, some degree of ongoing "personal branding" activity is inevitable..

That often creates pressure to post something new to your social channels on a regular basis -- and therein lies the risk.

The easiest thing to do might be to share pithy slogans purporting to deliver quick hits of inspiration. After all, it's your job as a leader or aspiring leader to motivate others, right? Right!

But your #MotivationalMonday tweet or Instagram post with a Gandhi quotation might be backfiring without you realizing it. Here's why, and how to avoid those fluffy expressions.

Lack Of Clarity Fails To Motivate

It's hard to be profound on a daily or weekly basis. It's even harder to be profound in just a few quick words.

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Consider this gem from an Instagram account dedicated to motivation:

Buried beneath that double-negative statement are a few unanswered questions: What does it mean for quotes to "work"? How exactly should you "apply" them?

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Here's another ambiguous one from the same account:

Who could argue with that? It would be great to learn from every mistake!

But even the slightly lengthier caption -- instructing you you to "study ways to avoid repeating [mistakes" -- doesn't tell you how to go about doing that.

Vague statements like these may earn likes from other busy professionals idly scrolling their social feeds, but they won't earn you attention from the people best positioned to help you advance your career.

Leaders do need to inspire and motivate, but they never succeed by spouting unclear generalities. Powerful communication spurs others to take action through clarity and precision. One reason people don't act is because they're confused or uncertain about what to actually do You can't motivate anyone -- let alone everyone -- to take productive, mission-driven action if you stick to vague platitudes.

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Superficial Comments Obscure Your Best Ideas

In order to attract career opportunities or win support for your ideas, you need to offer an original insight or propose a compelling solution to a problem. Shallow, superficial remarks do neither. Take this tweet for example:

Is this even true? If it is, it's great news anyone who's lost a friend, a family member, or even a pet. Does that mean you'll get a better dog next time? Or if you've blown a client opportunity, you'll invariably ace the next one? Obviously not.

Yes, it's true that "there is nothing more certain than change," as the text of the tweet points out, but not every loss leads to a better opportunity than what came before. This baseless optimism suggests shallow, uncritical thinking -- never a great look when you're trying to advance professionally.

Same goes for this post:

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"Magic"? "The Universe"? Are these really where effective leaders should place their hopes?

If anything, the most successful people know how to minimize unnecessary risk, sidestep the sunk-cost fallacy, and cut their losses so they can redirect their energies wherever they'll be better served. Perhaps that's a less "inspirational" idea, but it suggests much more skill, intelligence, and strategy that will likely appeal to your coworkers, employers, and business partners much more than your "stubborn heart" ever will.

Your best ideas will take more than a few words to lay out, and that's okay. The most difficult challenges out there -- the ones that take real leadership to surmount -- are complex. So while there's an art to speaking about complicated subjects without dumbing them down, your real goal should be to motivate others to engage with complexity, not shy away from it. Tossing out generic remarks that stick to the surface level doesn't help you do that. Worse, it suggests you aren't capable of diving any deeper.

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Rhetoric Should Sharpen Meaning, Not Dull It

Many of the most commonly shared and liked "motivational" social media posts use snappy turns of phrase. They may sound clever, but more often than not, they bury meaning instead of heightening it. The rhetoric, in other words, hides the substance.

An especially common device is "antimetabole," which simply means reversing the order of repeated words and phrases. John F. Kennedy used antimetabole in the most famous line of his inaugural address: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." In Kennedy's case, it was a rhetorically powerful way to express an idea about civic service. But if you aren't careful, your twist on this common device might do little more than set up a false opposition.

Take this tweet for example:

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For one thing, are knowledge and caring mutually exclusive? After a moment's thought, it may strike you that the two are in fact intimately linked.

After all, caring without knowledge suggests empty emotions; If you're ignorant about something, how can you be expected to care about it in the first place -- let alone know how best to show you care?

Furthermore, is it even a good idea for people to desire others' empathy without their understanding? It's hard to agree or disagree with an idea that's based on such shaky premises.

Rhetoric by itself is hollow. It's only effective when it's being used to compress and sharpen an underlying concept. Otherwise, it's just fluff that makes people suspect you don't know what you're talking about, and are trying to hide it.

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Quoting Great Thinkers Doesn't Mean You Understand Them

Finally, there's a risk that in quoting influential leaders, you'll take their words out of context and diminish their original power -- making yourself look bad in the process.

This professional quotes Alibaba founder Jack Ma in her LinkedIn headline: "Don't hire the most Qualified candidate. Hire the Craziest." This thought has deep roots in Ma's experience; having been rejected for 30 jobs he applied to after college, including one at KFC, Ma knows that on-paper credentials don't always tell the full story. But taken out of context, his statement doesn't make much sense. In fact, using this quote on your own social media channels might give the impression that you believe in making risky hires or in taking "crazy" risks yourself -- even if you don't.

Guest Authored By Judith Humphrey. Judith is founder and Chief Creative Officer of The Humphrey Group, a premier leadership communications firm headquartered in Toronto. She is a communications expert whose business teaches global clients how to communicate as confident, compelling leaders. Judith is also the author of two books, Speaking As A Leader: How To Lead Everytime You Speak.(2012) and Taking The Stage: How Women Can Speak Up, Stand Out And Succeed(2014). Follow Judith on Twitter.

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“It's always in your better interest to be seen as someone of substance than as an armchair philosopher.

When in doubt, stick to specifics rather than airy generalities. Ground your social media posts in your own thoughtful observations, drawn from firsthand experience.

Real leadership rarely comes in greeting card sized bites.”

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  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)