The biggest mistake you're making on social media

We think clicks and hits connect us. But what we should strive for - especially leaders on LinkedIn - is to create a storytelling dialogue that connects emotionally. Here's how to do it...

This summer, I became BFF with a globally-recognised celebrity. OK, slight exaggeration about the BFF bit but, for a moment, it felt like that. We made contact on social media, exchanged friendly emails and shared some stories – and it taught me a crucial lesson about how CEO storytelling can and should work better.

In particular, an experience I’ve been having with a new client, ShyCEO, about thought leadership. I’m going to be helping them construct monthly LinkedIn narratives that are both thoughtful and original (my definition of that dreaded phrase), designed to inspire internal teams across the world, help them gel, and generate responses to which ShyCEO will personally respond.

Their reaction: ‘What’s the point of talking to people on these platforms – can’t they just read everything on the company intranet and newsletter?’

Which is pretty standard stuff with business leaders, especially in the UK where around a quarter of all FTSE-100 chief executives have zero social media presence. Meanwhile, the most prolific users of sites such as LinkedIn, concentrate mostly on dull market reports and updates. Penned no doubt by their extensive teams of consultants (sometimes me, actually). The most prolific, BP’s Bernard Looney, is now out of a job because of a lack of candour, ironically.

My response to ShyCEO was to quote EM Forster: ‘only connect’. The novelist’s epigraph to his book, Howard’s End (turned into a film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson), was a plea to value long-term relationships above momentary delights. Or ‘hits’, in today’s parlance.

Connection is everything. One of the best reasons for a CEO to be more active on social media is not for what they have to say but what their audience does. People want to feel connected to their influencers, and that they might have a chance of personalizing that connection.

One of a newspaper’s most important pages is that of the letters. A chance for customers to contribute, suggest, provoke, elucidate, respond, reflect, agree and argue. Digital comments beneath articles are just as valuable, if tainted by anonymised abuse. This interchange of ideas is a key way for journalists to stay connected to their audiences. They care what people say and they want them to say it.

So over the next few months, ShyCEO and I are going to be experimenting with company-focused thought leadership that invites readers – especially staff - to respond, and the CEO (not me) will then respond.

In business terms, the leader will come across as more authentic and empathetic, the topics will feel more relevant, the tone more personable, the approach more collaborative, the words more meaningful. And there will be a greater feeling of connection.

As there is with my celebrity, whose work I’ve admired for about 30 years. Something he wrote had a profound effect on me, I went through the PR-controlled Twitter ‘system’, assuming that either my message wouldn’t reach him or a flunky would craft an anodyne response. Neither happened. Instead, he emailed me back, asked not to share his address and we exchanged a couple of stories over a few hours. Now call me shallow, but over the coming days, I devoured his work and loved it even more. Because of that exchange he will never be able to do wrong in my eyes. OK, so I am shallow.

The point being that we connected for the briefest of moments and it felt real. He influenced me in a way that was certainly unintentional. But it worked because meaningful connections – storied connections – have a huge capacity to influence.

The best leaders connect and they have never had more ability to connect with their teams in a constructive, controlled way as they do now.

So why are so many still so reluctant?

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