Last Call for the Social Media Train

I’ve said it so much that my team is just flat sick and tired of hearing me talk about it. “What?” you ask. The mantra that you HAVE to get on the social media bandwagon. If you’re not, you’re missing out – big time! Now, finally, I have an “authority” to back me up: Forbes.com. (Imagine my face with a smug look of vindication here.)

Just this weekend, Forbes.com published this article – How LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter Have Changed the ROI of Leadership in the Leadership section of their website. (I’d like to give a special thank you to my dear friend John Kim who writes for PGA.com – and who is an even bigger social media junkie than I am – for letting me know about it. If you like golf or sports or politics, you should probably follow him on Twitter; he’s hysterical.)

In this article, Glenn Llopis debunks the long held C-level myth that social media doesn’t add value. He specifically points out that your personal ROI is directly related to your thought leadership activities and that social media plays a huge role how you share your point of view. Having a singular focus on your own company is short sighted because there are people out there who need your insight and perspective on what’s going on in your industry. (Think of it as Tweeting for the greater good.)

Very enlightening is the story Mr. Llopis recounts of the head of marketing for a healthcare company who told him, “our leaders are not paid to write and express their POV outside their immediate roles & responsibilities. Besides, many of them don’t write well and would tarnish their image if they tried.” My reaction is “Exactly how well does one need to write for a 140-character Twitter message?” More than half of my Tweets are just re-tweets of articles that I found compelling and that I thought others needed to know about. Contributing content to social media isn’t about writing the next War and Peace or the next Atlas Shrugged. It’s about jotting down in 140-characters (or if you’re really adventurous, a 1,000 word blog post) your ideas about what’s going on in your industry, your city, your state and beyond. It’s not rocket science. You’ve just got to get yourself out there – read what others write, comment, share.

“Ugh. I just don’t have time for that.” Really? Remember that marketing exec from the story? Fired. Replaced by someone who understands the power of social media and how to capitalize on it. Are you really sure you don’t have time for it? Depending on the relative demographic age of your team or organization, you better figure it out…and quick!

Generation Y-ers (and to a lesser extent my own Gen-X peers) are forcing the issue. Generation Y employees who have grown up with social media tend to be much more transparent in their communication with their colleagues. They have less time (and less attention span) to pay attention to things that don’t impact them personally. Similarly, they use the same measuring stick to evaluate their leaders. Is what you say concise, important and impactful? Despite whether or not you like it, you have to communicate in a way they understand, and if that means all you have to reach your audience is 140-characters, you better get really good at skinny-ing down your message to a Tweet-able format.

Fortunately, it’s not too late to start. If you aren’t sure where to begin, just snag yourself a Twitter handle and start listening to folks from your own industry. Here are just a few of the industry-specific folks I follow: @ATT, @shareatt, @ATT_ATL, @ChannelMaven, @Channel_Online, @ATTBusiness, @khalihenderson, @CloudConvergence, @CRN . I also follow @Starbucks (because they have social media down to a science) and some business/coaching and development gurus like @nilofer, @WhenIGroUpCoach, @BreneBrown, @WSJ, and @HarvardBiz.

Once you’re comfortable with how conversations flow in social media, begin to contribute content to the discussion – even if it’s just sharing links to articles you find interesting. When all else fails, ask a Gen-Y employee to help you. They’ll think it’s awesome that they get to share some of their knowledge and you’ll earn some major favor capital with them. The only thing you can’t do is sit on the platform as the train pulls away from the station. “All aboard