Should top executives be using social media? How do you decide? Does it make a difference if a company is publicly traded vs private? Geni Dietrich over at SpinSucks has some great ideas:
The Good: I am a big fan of what Tony Hsieh did with Twitter in 2008, as Zappos built their brand and prepped for the Amazon acquisition. There are some examples of other good use by executives in this blog post by Beth Kanter.
The Bad: While it’s not an executive, exactly, I think the way the BP executives handled the entire oil spill, from their CEO saying he just wanted to go back to normal and get back on his yacht to the fake BP news Twitter account was poorly managed.
The Dos and Don’ts of Executive Social Media – Gini Dietrich
I tend to agree mostly with Gini. Whatever the case for a specific company, thought needs to go into how social media will be used and what the possible outcomes may be. Companies definitely need to setup a social media policy so that all employees know what’s acceptable.
What do you think?
(affiliate link) by Chris Brogan, or heard him speak on the subject, but having trust within your social network IS extremely important if you want to be able to use the channel for any communication. Creating trust and being trustworthy online, or being a trust agent is changing. Chris gives some ideas on how to be a trust agent within your own social network (works offline too):