Comms leaders: here's how to help your CEO get on board with LinkedIn

Here’s one for the comms leaders out there: How do you get your CEO to take LinkedIn seriously?

Unless you’re one of the lucky ones, chances are your CEOs is quite inactive on LinkedIn.

According to a search I ran on Sales Navigator, only 15% of CEO LinkedIn users at firms with more than 200 employees in the UK and US have posted in the past 30 days.??

Research from FTI Consulting, shows that only 51% of FTSE100 CEOs are even on LinkedIn in the first place.?

It’s a missed opportunity, because*:

• LinkedIn is growing and now has 810 million users worldwide, with engagement up 22%?
• LinkedIn is regarded as being the most trusted social network
• CEOs often get more reach and engagement than the company page
• People want to work for and buy from companies which have leaders who are active on social media
• The good behaviours from the CEO filter down to the rest of the organisation - social media scales

Which leads to the question, why don’t more CEOs use LinkedIn??

I have been working with business leaders on social media for over ten years, and spent the last two focusing on it as my core business at Brightside Digital Engagement. I have seen that there are a few issues that keep coming up, so here’s my guide for how to tackle them - just for comms leaders.?

“I haven’t got time”

This is the most common reason I hear and the one I understand the most. Whether you are CEO of a fast-growing startup or a Fortune 500 company, you don’t have the hours in your day to write posts and answer all the comments. Let alone invest the time reviewing connection requests, proactively commenting and creating rich content, such as video.?

The obvious answer is to outsource it all.

This doesn’t work either because content ends up looking extremely generic and even inauthentic.?The CEO needs to invest a bit of time and energy to make it stick.

The irony is that CEOs may well be using LinkedIn (and Twitter) themselves, passively looking at content, but are often reluctant to do it themselves.

Solution: You need to reassure your CEO that this isn’t their responsibility alone and that you will put a support team in place to help with the heavy lifting (without taking it over). Try comparing it to their media relations responsibilities. While they may have to do the interviews with the journalists, they don’t have to find the opportunities, write the Q&A or even come up with all the answers.?It's a team effort.

“It’s too risky”

There are plenty of anecdotal cases where CEOs have fallen prey to negativity on social media.?

My take is that this usually happens when a CEO makes a mistake off social media, but the problem is played out on social media (e.g. Better.com CEO Vashal Garg sacking hundreds of employees over Zoom, causing a tidal wave of negativity on social channels).

Some CEOs also worry about customers attacking them on social media and not being able to respond quickly or adequately.?

Neither of these scenarios is common at all, especially on LinkedIn, and both can be addressed with a decent comms plan. Also, if you’re so worried about your products and services that you fear being attacked on LinkedIn, that might raise some other questions!?

If I was a CEO I would be more worried about not having a social media platform, with a ready-made engaged audience, to be able to deal with any crises, should they happen.?

Solution: A risk assessment, including an audit and comms plan, with clear escalation of what to do if something happens, will allay the concerns for even the most risk-averse CEOs. If that’s not enough, find some examples of people in their peer group who are active on social media usually helps. In my experience, compliance teams are usually sceptical, especially if you are working in a regulated area, so going through your own risk assessment will ease this process. Also remember that your CEO’s LinkedIn profile is not the property of the company - it’s personal to the individual.??

“I’m too old”

Aagghh, if there’s one reason that I find frustrating, it’s this one. I’m in my late 40s and don’t feel remotely too old for social media (I draw the line at TikTok dances though). The most popular age-band for LinkedIn users is between 25 and 35, but this shouldn’t make any difference either. My take is this reason is just part of an insecurity or a convenient excuse.?

Solution: This is one where showing the CEO some of their peer group who are of a similar age who are active helps. The likes of Bernard Looney (BP), Mary Barra (General Motors), Vas Narasimhan (Novartis), Roz Brewer (Wallgreens Boots Alliance) all have a couple of years on me, and do a fine job on the platform.??

“We can’t measure the impact of it”

There are lots of ways of measuring performance on LinkedIn, from follower growth and profile views, through to post performance and LinkedIn’s own scoring metric Social Selling Index.?

I’m in favour of including anecdotal feedback - when customers, prospects and peers say they’ve seen your CEO being active and have a more positive view as a result. It really isn’t uncommon for people to report that it’s led to an RFP or deal opportunity.

That said, like all marketing activities LinkedIn suffers from the attribution issue, especially for executive comms. In other words, you can’t say for definite what activities led to the desired result, when so many things are happening.?

Solution: Start with an audit of your CEO's current position and compare them with some peers in the industry to get a benchmark. When creating the programme objectives, think about what good looks like from an audience influence perspective - e.g. if you are trying to raise your CEO's profile amongst other CEOs at customers and clients, create a specific goal based on a quality metric, in addition to the high volume data points, such as content performance. Tools like SHIELD Analytics are invaluable for the data side and can be used without accessing the CEO's profile every time.?

“What if people don’t care about what I have to say?”

OK, now we’re getting close to the real issue. This is the main reason I believe people don’t post regularly on LinkedIn: they have imposter syndrome. And just to let you into a secret, CEOs have it too.?

Yes, there are times where people don’t care what the CEO has to say. But it’s usually when they keep their guard up and don’t reveal what they really think about something, or show any vulnerability.?

Think of the communicators you admire most, whether they’re from business, sport or entertainment. Chances are you feel that way about them because they are passionate about their area and don’t appear to be too polished and corporate. It’s the same for business leaders: they need to talk about things they really care about have have an authority on.?

Solution: Treat your CEO’s presence on social media as seriously as you would a media interview. You would give them some media training and help them with their messaging and talking points, amongst other things, right? You do the same here, but just adapt it for social media. There needs to be an agreed messaging framework that they (and you) can work with. One more important tip: let them be themselves and don’t try to control the way the message is delivered too much.?

What to do next?

If you’re interested in getting your CEO to buy into LinkedIn as a communications platform, my suggestion is to run a pilot with one of their direct reports (an SVP or other "-1" who they respect). That way you’ll have some data points and evidence that it really does work to help boost your case.?

If you’d like to learn more about the Brightside approach to executive comms, then drop me an email or DM. We work with c-suite executives and owners of businesses of all sizes, from start-ups and one-person bands, through to those who are running NYSE-listed behemoths.?And much as we love working with business leaders directly, it's always more effective collaborating with a supportive comms leader who can ensure that everything is integrated and part of an overall comms strategy.

*- References are all on my previous article LinkedIn Statistics You’ll Want At Your Fingertips and LinkedIn's latest results