6 damaging myths about
#socialmedia for leaders
& the truths behind them
Dionne Kasian-Lew
Boston Consulting says social media will be worth
$4.2 trillion by 2016, a Capgemini-MIT Sloan study
shows digitally mature businesses are 26% more
profitable than less mature peers & the Sensis Social
Media Report says of searches done
nearly 70% convert to a sale…
And YET …
… executives are
missing in action.
Only 30 percent of CEOs are social
but mostly because they’ve signed up to LinkedIn
(& not necessarily using it) -
Why with all this evidence of value, is there still
such a gap?
I believe executives are anchored to damaging
myths about social media that hold them back.
The eruption of social media seemed so fast and was so
visibly associated with teen geekery that an
inaccurate but influential narrative has taken hold.
Here are some truths.
Myth #1:
Social Media is a Fad
The professional business network
LinkedIn was founded in 2002 and
now has 260 million users from
200 countries.
When people think of Facebook,
they think of the baby-faced
college kid, Mark Zuckerberg. But
Facebook is over a decade old.
As for CEO Mark Zuckerberg…
- that ‘kid’ is now a 30-year old
billionaire leading 6000 employees
of a listed company.
Even relative newcomer Twitter
has been around since 2006 &
handles 500 million tweets & 1.6
billion search queries every day.
I could go on.
But I’ve made the
point.
Social media is here to stay.
Myth #2
Social media is for posting photos
of what you ate at lunch
Look at Instagram and it’s no surprise people think
social media is about posting photos of what you ate
for lunch.
#yum that looks good
We are taking a LOT of them.
But I want to put that in
Context -
Imagine you’ve had a four-hour meeting &break for
lunch, someone delivers a tray of sandwiches and you
turn to a colleague and say
“oh chicken sandwiches.
I love them.”
Totally appropriate…
Totally within context …
Better still -
reveals something of you,
the human side, vital for building relationships.
But is this what the four-hour
meeting was about?
I don’t think so!
Photos in social media record a moment in time -
“I was here …
this is what I saw that caught my
attention”…
They’re deeply human.
Myth #3 Social media is
for code monkeys
Thanks Sebastiaan - http://www.flickr.com/photos/ter-burg/
Social media is not about tools
but what tools allow you to do –
Build relationships.
Yes these platforms have to be built &
yes people who know how to code build them.
But you don’t need to know about that any more than
electronic circuits just because you watch TV.
Networks allow you to reach out
to people around the world with great ideas or who
share your interests but who you don’t know exist
until the algorithms work that out -
- that’s the only part that
requires code and you not need to
write it.
#4 Social media is for
people under 25
Eight new people come online a second. Are all
these people 25 and under?
I don’t think so.
On LinkedIn two professionals join a second (under
25?)
on Twitter the fastest growing demographic last year
- adults aged 55-65,
Facebook?
55-65 year olds …
Truth: social
media is for
everyone.
Myth #5
Social Media is for
Marketing
Leaders have “handballed” social
media to marketing, but it’s not
marketing …
But because marketers are
creative & experimental many
recognized its potential early and
hopped on board.
…but social media is about a
lot more ...
customers
sales, research
&communications -
listening
sharing
mew ideas & innovations …
& MUCH DEEPER -
Social media creates an
expectation that cannot be
delivered under legacy business
structures - immediacy.
We expect to find
what we want,
where we are &
ACT on it.
We have to connect &
socialise every part of
business.
Myth #6 There’s no ROI on
social media.
There are more social media metrics
than you can poke a stick at.
You can build indicators for –
Finance: Has revenue/profit increased or
costs decreased?
Brand: Have consumer attitudes about the
brand improved?
Risk: Are we better prepared to respond
to problems that affect reputation?
Digital: Has the company enhanced its
digital assets?
However, it’s difficult to
measure what counts the most…
…the value of
relationships.
Having said that in
2013 Business Insider said
brands were moving away
from metrics because they
recognized that social media
is not transactional.
The focus has shifted to measures
like reach, engagement and sentiment.
Truth: ROI is complex to
measure but social and digital
deliver measurable value
Six social media
realities for leaders to
reflect on -
#1 Social media is
here to stay.
#2 Social media captures
human moments.
#3 Social media is for
everyone.
#4 Social media is about
relationships.
#5 Social media is about
immediacy,
connectivity and impacts
the whole of business .
#6 ROI is complex to measure
but social and digital deliver
measurable value.
If you want to find out more thenplease
sign up to be notified by
WILEY when my new book The
Social Executive –
why executives need social media & how to capitalise in it is
launched globally July 2014.
In the meantime you can find
me across the web –
dionnekasianlew.com
@dionnelew
That took time to read, so
THANK YOU – I
appreciate your attention.
dionne@dionnekasianlew.com

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6 damaging myths about social media