Social capital: How to leverage LinkedIn for leaders

Leaders and the social media necessity

In today’s world, it's no longer enough for business leaders to focus on delivering results. Leaders play a crucial role in creating company culture, representing the organisation and its people, and setting the right tone with external audiences. As a result, a leader’s public profile has become a critical part of organisational leadership. Leaders are expected by their diverse audiences to communicate directly, transparently, and authentically via social media.?

According to Brunswick’s 2022 Connected Leadership Report, employees, potential recruits, financial readers (read: customers and shareholders, present and future), and other stakeholders trust and want to be associated with leaders that are present on social media more than those who aren’t. ?

LinkedIn is the social media platform of choice for professionals. Of its 900 million users worldwide, more than 90% hold at least an undergraduate degree, 80% “drive business decisions” in some form, while 61 million are senior-level influencers.?

LinkedIn is designed to connect leaders with audiences that matter. It enables them to showcase their knowledge and expertise in a way that develops their personal brand, builds their credibility, and enhances trust in them. Good news for leaders; good news for their organisations. ?

The bottom line: leaders should be doing LinkedIn - and they should be doing it well.?

Know your ABCs

At Fourtold, we are proud to have developed a multi-award-winning approach to leveraging LinkedIn for leadership communications. One examples is our work with world-leading facilities management and workplace experience company ISS A/S, which recently won the PRovoke Media SABRE EMEA In2 Award for Best Social Publishing and Blogs, as well as the SABRE Diamond Award for CEO of the Year. We have also been nominated for Best Use of LinkedIn at the Global Social Media Awards. ?

To make the most out of LinkedIn, we have defined our own an ABC approach: Audit, Build, Create.?

When it comes to communication, it’s always worth considering:?

• Who is your audience and where are they present? How can you best reach them??
• What is your objective, and what is the best way to achieve it??
• What tools and channels do we need to be successful???

If we think that LinkedIn is the - or part of the answer, we start with our Audit and analyses.?

We audit the LinkedIn profiles, account activity, and network of the leaders we are working with, which allows us to identify strengths and weaknesses, gaps and opportunities for growth. We also benchmark against industry peers, as well as leading figures across key stakeholder groups or knowledge areas. ?

Armed with crucial insight both from our audits and incorporating best practice from our understanding of the LinkedIn algorithm, step two is to Build.?

Working with the CEO and their wider team, we create bespoke LinkedIn strategies that consider different roles, responsibilities, preferences, and tones of voice. This will often include narrative development around key thought leadership areas like environmental sustainability, diversity, equity, and inclusion, or technology. Typically, these strategies include both proactive engagement, such as regular posts and longer articles, as well as responsive engagement. We also set ambitious KPIs to measure value, volume, and impact of engagement, and report against these KPIs so we can ?constantly review, learn, and develop our strategy.?

Finally, to build confidence and ensure joint ownership of the strategy, we deliver tailored training to our leaders so that they can understand, buy-in, and engage effectively. ?

Our final step is to Create. Working with our clients’ communications leads, we look to integrate internal calendars and campaigns with external events, current affairs, and trending topics. In doing so, we aim to create content that reflects the leadership’s purpose and values, that showcases their thought leadership on focus topics, all while remaining relevant and of interest to external audiences.?

To ensure authenticity, we always require the input of the executives themselves. They are the final authors and must maintain control of their accounts to be credible users of LinkedIn and build genuine connections with their networks. After all, if it’s not them behind the account, why would someone engage with them? We provide the helping hand.?

Measuring success

?As any football manager will tell you, “It’s a results business”.?

?We set ourselves ambitious targets and hold ourselves accountable for achieving them. We’ve recorded up to 122% annual network growth for our leaders, as well as similar increases in average monthly engagement rates, profile views, and high-quality interactions. ?

Our LinkedIn strategies have also contributed to new commercial opportunities for the companies that we work with, as well as to overall company reputation. Beyond industry awards, the ISS CEO’s account has also been recognised by leading journalists working in digital reputation (see here and here). ?

Beyond the impact on the executive, we also invariably see an impact on employees throughout the whole company. In response to the uptick in CEO or other senior executive activity, other employees follow suit. They recognise the importance of brand ambassadorship and the potential of LinkedIn as a platform for sharing thought leadership. ?

A final word

Leaders are now expected to be effective communicators and to use social media as one of their communication channels. With LinkedIn offering a purpose-built platform for professional engagement, and a captive audience for new content, it’s a must-do for any modern exec.?

If you’re not doing it well yet, you’re missing a trick (and we can help).?

Adam Kaznowski , Associate Director, Fourtold