I continue to be amazed by how many people are still skeptical about social media as a legitimate business tool.
Did you know that Faceook founder Mark Zuckerberg was named Time's Person of the Year?
Did you know that “The Social Network” also won the Critic's Choice Award for Best Movie and Best Director?
And then there is Harvard Business School professor Bill George, who said this: “Social networking is the most significant business development of 2010, topping the resurgence of the U.S. automobile industry.”
What is interesting to me about this is that George is the former CEO of Medtronic and a best-selling author who represents the growing trend in CEO (or former CEO) bloggers. Read this excerpt from his article in HBR titled, “How Social Networking Has Changed Business.”
“Leaders like IBM's Sam Palmisano, PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi, Apple's Steve Jobs, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, Carlson's Marilyn Nelson, and Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria are all active social network users. Why? Because these social networks are a unique way of broadly communicating real-time messages to the audiences they want to reach. They can write a message anywhere, anytime, and share it with interested parties without any public relations meddling, speech writers, airplane travel, canned videos, or voicemail messages. Now their words are much more authentic and can be remarkably empowering.”
I would add one more CEO blogger to this list — Bill Marriott, who clearly understands the significance of blogging as a major communication tool. When I did a professional issues update with the Marriott global finance team in Bethesda, the finance team explained how they feel more connected and “in the know” about Marriott because of Bill's blog.
Authenticity, communication and connection are all words that were used to describe how the Marriott team members described their CEO's blog. They also talked about how much more connected to the organization and the CEO they felt as a result of his blog. As we have repeatedly said here at CPA Success, social media is NOT about the technology. It is ALL about relationships and communication.
I wonder why more managing partners of CPA firms don't blog, or use social media more? Or more CFOs?
I have to agree with Bill George's concluding statement: “That's why social networking is the most important business development of the year.” My hat is off to you, Mr. Zuckerberg, and congratulations!
What do you think?
Here are two of my favorite books to help you get started in blogging and social media:
- The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right
- Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion
- Our self-directed learning program for CPAs and social media: www.cpalearning2.com
- Plenty of other resources on social media from our prior posts.