The strategy blog “Social media and business strategy” last week discussed the growing importance of social media for business strategy. The results of the poll, that was added to the blog, seem to confirm these findings. An interesting question is: what is the importance of social media for business leaders personally?
In the Harvard Business Review article “What’s your personal social media strategy” there are three arguments why business leaders must embrace social media and have a personal social media strategy. These arguments are:
- Social media provide a low cost platform to build your personal brand and to communicate internally and externally;
- Social media allow leaders to engage more rapidly and simultaneously with different stakeholders;
- Social media give the opportunity to learn from instant information and feedback.
In reality not all business leaders are active on social media. This can be for many reasons. For example because business leaders do not like social media and/or they weigh the risks of social media more than the benefits. Risks are mainly related to the public visibilty of everything the business leader does and the uncertainty of what happens on the social media.
Personally I believe more in the advantages of social media and the fact that social media are growing in importance. Interestingly there is also evidence that social media have a positive effect on equity value (Social media and equity value published in Information Systems Research).
In the poll this week I would like to ask you what do you think about the question: Should business leaders have an active personal social media strategy?
Image courtesy of Tungphoto at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Norbert Bol 