CEC Insider » Social Media

Communications Channels Explosion – Friend or Foe?

Marika Krausova — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:00:33 +0000

There has been a rapid growth in available communications channels in the last couple years. This channel explosion places an unprecedented pressure on the communications function to design a strong channel strategy to use these efficiently and effectively. All of these new channels present an opportunity for communicators to reach out to large audiences and spread information and messages with rapid speed. But it also takes lots of more of communicator’s time to navigate these channels and measure and evaluate how effective they are in their usage.

While many communications teams have a dedicated channel and/or social media person on the team, every communications professional (regardless of your specialization) needs to have a good grasp of channel management. As part of my new project focused on designing a channel audit diagnostic, I have spoke to several of our members to figure out what types of channel related metrics (data) would help communicators use channels in more efficient and effective way. Here are some of the challenges faced by our members that we are hoping to help them solve with the new channel audit diagnostic:

1. Tracking Usage

Most communicators I spoke to have a good idea about the overall channels usage in their company. They can tell what percentage of their mailing list typically opens their newsletter; how many people listen on to their webinars; or how many people showed up for their CEO/Employee roundtable. However, while lots of communicators know their absolute numbers, they can rarely benchmark themselves to other comms functions in other companies to see how well they are really doing in these metrics.

2. Measuring Comms Effectiveness

While usage numbers are important, high usage is not the same as high impact and effectiveness. At the end of the day, what really matters not how many people read your blog, but how many of them actually went and took action or modified their behavior because something you said really resonated with them. Many of the communicators I spoke to express a desire to be able to determine better which channels are more/less effective in helping them drive real behavioral change-related outcomes among different groups of stakeholders.

3. Impact of Channels on Employees’ Productivity

A big part of modern communicator’s job is not just to use channels effectively, but also to ensure an organization-wide efficiency in channel usage across the company. Not all channels are created equal when it comes to boosting employees’ productivity, and some can even be detrimental to it (30 Facebook updates a day, 20 corporate-wide emails in over-worked employee’s inbox). Consequently, communicators need to worry not only about their own channel effectiveness, but also focus on guiding the employees and other functions on how to use channels to their advantage in productive manner.

I would love to hear your thoughts on some of the new challenges you face due to the channel explosion, and what measures/metrics you have in place to track one (or all three) of the above. As well as how are you making all these new channels work for you!

And make sure to check out some of our great channel-related resources:

Channel Selection Tool

Social Media Latest Outlook

Mobile Technology Latest Outlook

Top 3 Worst Communication Gaffes of 2011

Rick DeLisi — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:00:36 +0000

3? Just a measly 3? C’mon, already. I mean, when you think of every foot that’s been unceremoniously shoved into its corresponding mouth during this entire year, how could you possibly limit the list to just 3?

But, as a communications professional, I will attempt to fulfill the mission as assigned by the stern taskmistress who runs the show here at the Insider…starting with:

#3: The Governor of Texas Can’t Count to 3
Gaffe: During a November GOP debate in Washington, DC, Rick Perry (the ever-so-momentarily leading contender to challenge President Obama) stated in no uncertain terms that when HE becomes president, his first order of business will be to eradicate three federal agencies: Commerce, Education, and…uhhhhhhh…the, uhhhh….

Lesson: (eesh, where to start?) If you’re gonna be specific, you’d better be…well…specific. If you’re gonna make inflammatory, controversial statements, you’d better be able to back them up. If you’re gonna prove that you’re smart enough to be the next President of the United States, you’d better be able to count past two.

#2: Companies Using Serious News Events as a “Hook” For Selling Stuff
Gaffe 2A: Shortly after British singer Amy Winehouse passed away, the Microsoft UK PR account suggested that purchasing her music through their Zune service would be a good way to remember the fallen star.

Gaffe 2B: In the midst of the Arab Spring uprisings and the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek, some marketing/PR genius at Kenneth Cole tweeted the following: “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online.”

Lesson: That brand of snappy, snarky wise-assery that sounds oh-so-edgy at your agency’s late-night brainstorming session just comes across as crass, commercial and crude to the rest of us.

And…this year’s winner…

#1: If Your Name Is Anthony WEINER, For Goodness Sake…
Gaffe: What was worse — taking a picture of…(let’s just go with) yourself…and using Twitter to send it to a young female admirer – or…lying about it with the now-classic “Somebody musta hacked my account!”?

Lesson A: In the history of mankind, no one’s dog ever actually ate their homework. And, therefore, no one’s ever gonna believe that YOU didn’t send that tweet. So, don’t even think about steering toward that exit ramp, in an attempt to leave the freeway of your own stupidity.

Lesson B: If any part of your name sounds like a word that vaguely describes any part of the human anatomy, you’ve just gotta know you’re playing with fire. (That’s why so many grade school science teachers are so deliberate in pronouncing the name of the seventh planet from the Sun as “YUR-a-niss.”)

Lesson C: Don’t ever send anything to anyone that you wouldn’t want…your grandmother…a priest…your CEO…CNN…to see.

FINAL CONCLUSION: Hey, we’re all communicators here. Every day we all write and say stuff that others will hear, analyze and criticize. Sometimes the things that come out of our mouths (or keyboards) (or smartphones) aren’t as well thought-out as they oughta be. So…as 2012 dawns, and the whiteboard of the past year is erased clean…then, between us, we should all remind ourselves…let’s be careful out there.

HOW ABOUT YOU? What memorable communication gaffes would you add to the list?

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CEC’s Top 4 External Communications Tools

Joanna Wohlmuth — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:02:05 +0000

The end of the year is often thought of as a time for reflection — and getting things done.

As you close out the year and get revved up for 2012, check out some of our top tools and templates. In the last year, your CEC external communications peers have been using these guides to do their jobs faster and more effectively.

You can also check out our top internal tools.

CEC’s Top Four External Communications Tools

1. How to Write News Releases for a Networked Environment

What it is: Use this guide to ensure that your news releases are strategically focused, designed to appeal to key audiences and optimized for multimedia use.
Why it’s cool: The media landscape has changed drastically in recent years. This toolkit will help you stay ahead of the curve by improving your news releases subject, style, media content and format.

2. How to Optimize Your Twitter Strategy to Support Business Outcomes

What it is: This toolkit walks you through creating a Twitter strategy that focuses on driving stakeholder action to enable business outcomes. It also contains guidance on developing meaningful metrics, getting your tweets shared by others, getting started on Twitter, and selecting monitoring tools.
Why it’s cool: Tweeting to share is nice, but tweeting to support business outcomes is better. This approach relies on Twitter’s functionality as an information distribution channel to engage key audiences and improve the corporate reputation.

3. Tailor Messages for Local Audiences

What is it: Use this series of questions to understand when your audience will be most receptive to messages.
Why it’s cool: Because generic messages don’t account for cultural differences among local communications teams, it’s essential to tailor the tone, content, and language of messages based on the values of local audiences.

4. Benchmark Your Team’s Budget Allocation

What it is: This online benchmarking analysis tool will help you in the budget planning process by providing benchmarks for key budget areas, including media relations, social media and your corporate website.
Why it’s cool: Using data we’ve collected from more than 70 member organizations on 2011 communications resource levels, you can view the benchmark data set through lenses such as industry, business model, organization size, function structure, and geography.

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Adding Value Where it Counts

Dana Clifford — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:30:05 +0000

Since 2007, communicators have increased the percent of their budget spent on measurement and monitoring by 119%. And today, over 80% of communicators are actively using social media to listen to, talk to, or energize their stakeholders.

For many teams, there has been great focus on improving the corporate Facebook page or becoming more outcomes-focused with the information shared on Twitter. While we may have connected with our employees or our strongest supporters through social channels, we know from our peers in Marketing that the value of a general consumer as a follower may not be what we’d hoped. In fact, the average consumer follows 8.9 organizations on Facebook and looks to these channels mostly for deals as opposed to general updates about the organization.

What we do know is that social media has been created to give people an environment that provides them with information where they want it, when they want it. Unfortunately, if your current social media approach focuses on communicating on channels in your control, you may be missing the mark of stakeholders’ expectations.

That said, with trillions of sites to monitor the countless conversations that may be going on about your industry, your company, or your products, it is an impossible task for Communications to take on alone. Essentially, we need some help creating tentacles of information in the places where our stakeholders are communicating to lure them back to our site for more information.

Let me share with you a notable approach to this challenge from National Instruments (NI)–a hardware and software engineering company with no more than 15% of its business in one industry alone (imagine the volume of various social sites that could house relevant conversations for them!) With only one communicator dedicated to social media, they were able to put the stakeholders’ information needs first while keeping a lens to their own business objectives.

Here are the 5 simple steps to National Instrument’s “Conversation Match Making” System:

1. Listen for “actionable” conversations

Goal: Find opportunities to add value where stakeholder conversations are naturally happening.

How: Use social media monitoring tools; also consider creating an “organizational listening system” where employees who find conversations relating to the company can alert communications.

2. Filter by potential to add value:

Goal: Narrow the set of opportunities to those of highest potential value

How: Communications should work with monitoring vendors to filter for opportunities in highly networked sites, where there might be a historical relationship, and a valuable SEO strategy; most importantly, all opportunities should be filtered for alignment with business objectives (i.e., customer service, product development, strategic relationship development, brand awareness)

3. Post opportunities to an employee community:

Goal: Scale the organizations’ ability to respond and add maximum value by leveraging employee experts

How: Create an online forum where participating employees are able to share ideas on the most valuable response; dedicated employees own response based on their area of expertise

4. Domain experts respond on the original site:

Goal: Add value on stakeholders terms by providing them with relevant information in adequate timing for the conversations they are actively participating in

How: Provide interested employees with social media training to ensure effective and appropriate conversations. Training should include concepts including how to introduce themselves, language and tone to use, what not to write.

5. Link back to value- adding information on the company site:

Goal: Lure stakeholders to relevant, additional information on company websites, social media pages, or community sites.

How: Provide a clear link on the original site to relevant information from the company.

Things to consider:

Narrow the scope of employee participation so it is easy for them to see how to contribute
Motivate employee involvement not through campaigns or incentives but through tapping their natural motivators to help others, look smart, feel cool, or have a sense of belonging
Enabling peer recognition for employees’ contribution acts as another, ongoing motivator

Question for you: Has your team tried something similar? What has worked to engage your employees as advocates for the company within a lens that Legal is comfortable with?

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How Not to Waste Your Time on Twitter

Joanna Wohlmuth — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:30:47 +0000

“How should my company use Twitter?” is an intimidating question and it’s only the tip of the iceberg. What should and shouldn’t we tweet about? Are people retweeting our posts? Do we have enough followers? And at the end of the day, what do the hours monitoring Hootsuite and TweetDeck really get us?

We set out to determine how and why companies should use Twitter and found that it becomes much easier to answer these questions with clear business outcomes in mind. Here are some of our key insights:

Why bother with Twitter?

Twitter is a powerful information sharing network. When your supporters actively spread your messages with their networks on Twitter, they reach a broader audience. And whether it’s in the form of a retweet, mention or hashtag, the message gains credibility since it isn’t coming directly from the company. We’ve taken our analysis even further than the last time we discussed the value of Twitter.

What should we do on Twitter?

Companies must shift from simply tweeting positive messages to supporting specific business outcomes to get the greatest value from Twitter. By focusing on the intersection of stakeholder interests and business outcomes, tweets can be crafted to drive behavior of individual stakeholder groups in support of these outcomes.

Why is this approach better?

It’s much easier to map out a robust Twitter strategy when being outcomes-focused and stakeholder-centric. Rather than sending a steady stream of positive messages, you’ll be able to focus on what really matters — supporting your company’s business goals. And once you lay out the desired stakeholder actions that support each outcome objective, creating tactics and metrics becomes a logical extension of your strategy rather than a hodgepodge of positive messages meant to boost reputation.

By now, you should be wondering how you can make this happen. Let’s walk through an example of how to craft a strategy focused on driving stakeholder actions to enable business outcomes:

Start: Indentify the Business Outcomes What business outcomes are you supporting?

Example: A national bank wants to grow market share in a new region

Step 1: Select the Target Stakeholder(s) Who are the target stakeholder groups for this initiative?

Though there are many, let’s focus on local small business owners

Step 2: Determine the Desired Stakeholder Action What do you want each target stakeholder to do?

Take out a loan

Step 3: Enlist a Tactic on Twitter What actions will you take on Twitter to influence the behavior of each stakeholder group?

Follow small business owners on Twitter, comment and retweet when they share things related to financial struggles or successes.

Step 4: Measure Your Impact What metrics can you track on Twitter to demonstrate impact?

Increase in number of small business loans, customer likelihood to recommend loans to others, Twitter metrics (clicks on links, retweets, increased small business followers)

CEC members can check out the full guide to creating an outcome-focused Twitter strategy, along with some additional guidance on getting started on Twitter, getting your tweets shared by others and selecting monitoring tools.

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Risky Business: Financial Services & Crisis Comms

Jeff Schott — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:00:08 +0000

“Hope for the best – plan for the worst.” I’ve heard this saying many times in my life, used in a wide range of contexts. Most recently, it came up in a conversation with a CEC member in the Financial Services industry who was referring to his company’s approach to crisis communications. He emphasized how little room for error there seemed to be these days, mentioning that, despite prudent business practices over the past few years, the public still considered his company “guilty by association,” simply due to a general loss of confidence in the industry. Trust had eroded and scrutiny was on the rise.

Data from CEC’s sister program, the Corporate Ethics & Leadership Council (CELC), confirms that this is not an isolated perspective. A recent study of corporate leaders reveals that 77% believe media scrutiny has increased, while 82% report a proliferation of new risk types. These developments combined with the continued rise in citizen journalism and fluid information flow are making communicators feel more vulnerable to crises.

Faced with such a risky environment, it might seem difficult to truly “plan for the worst.” After all, this assumes that your company can create a comprehensive list of potential crises as respective plans. And while I won’t recommend that you don’t plan for individual scenarios or try to prevent crises from happening (check out our latest resources on avoiding crisis), I do think there are some things that companies should do to ensure that they are prepared to respond effectively when a crisis hits.

(1) Assess and address the crisis quickly – If there is one thing that all crisis managers know, it’s that you have to act quickly. The best practitioners embed incident assessment guides and escalation protocols into the business to make sure that, when a potential crisis occurs, employees can quickly determine its severity and outline the critical information to gather. The criteria (e.g., financial impact, degree of public concern, operational impact, intensity of media scrutiny) will be unique to each institution. The important thing is that you establish protocols that are clear and allow you to act fast.

CEC members can read an example from TD Bank which shows how to accurately gauge a crisis’ severity, and promptly report it to Communications.

(2) Manage the ongoing debate – Once word of a crisis is out to the public, it has the potential to spread like wildfire. Gone are the days when Communications could control the messages that circulate (that is if there truly ever was “control”) — conversations will evolve quickly as information becomes available. So, in order to manage the ongoing debate, companies must align efforts to closely listen to/monitor sentiment to determine where stakeholders are going for their information and which messages and voices are particularly influential.

CEC members can access the Stakeholder Listening and Understanding Topic Center to learn what drives stakeholder opinion and determine which conversations to participate in.

(3) Enable employees to have conversation with stakeholders – While some might want Communications to screen every external conversation related to a crisis, the reality is that there simply aren’t the resources. Comms budgets are flat so communicators who are already spread thin as it is will be further stretched during a crisis. One thing that organizations can do is to help managers effectively engage directly with external stakeholders. After all, when a crisis hits, your external business partners, customers, and other key stakeholders are going to pick up the phone and call their contacts at your organization. In terms of “planning for the worst,” one of the best things that communicators can do is give employees the tools to have appropriately aligned conversations with external parties.

CEC members can take a look at Alcoa’s Stakeholder Relationships Playbook for equipping managers with the tools to engage with stakeholders.

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Banking on Social Media

Dorian Cundick — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:00:29 +0000

I found myself walking into the closest branch of my bank the other day to take care of a transaction. The people at my bank are super nice. They always go the extra mile. They always offer me coffee, which I always decline. Really, they have the customer service thing down. But for all my fond feelings towards them, I mostly just resented having to drive all the way to my bank to take care of a transaction that I would rather have handled remotely on my own. The reason—I didn’t want or need their advice—I simply needed their logistics.

Apparently, I’m typical. For years we’ve worked to entice our banking customers into our branches with the quality of our customer service—wooing them with friendly faces and a hot drink so that they’ll want to entrust us with their financial future. But by the time they’re easing themselves into our comfy chairs, they’ve already made their financial decisions—they’re simply there because they have to be to finish the transaction.

As I’ve visited with our members in the financial services space, it’s been very clear that we’re grappling with how to make ourselves more relevant to our customers before they’ve actually made their decisions. We know that social media may be our best shot, but most of us are fighting an uphill battle internally to build the case that using social media won’t prove our ruin as a company.

For a good pep talk and some ideas on how you can build confidence internally and capitalize on social media to connect more effectively with your key stakeholders, check out our Principles for Social Media in Highly Regulated Spaces. We’ll be covering these principles—as well as some great examples of how banks are using social media to engage their customers earlier in the decision process—in a special webinar on social media for financial services.

Register for the webinar here.

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Why Bother with Corporate Twitter?

Joanna Wohlmuth — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:00:22 +0000

If every corporate Twitter account was deleted tomorrow, what would happen?

Social media has come to define the way many people use the internet. But even two years ago the terrain looked much different (RIP MySpace) and it’s anyone’s guess what the next two will bring (good luck, Google+).

Twitter is currently the third most popular social media platform, so it provides a huge potential audience for companies. But realizing that potential may take more effort than we’d hoped.

That’s why we’ve been investigating what best-in-class Twitter strategies look like. CEC members we’ve spoken to so far have had some interesting things to say about the evolution of their Twitter strategy and plans for the future.

Let us know what you think in the comments.

What’s the value of followers?

CEC Hypothesis: The size of your Twitter following is not important; the degree to which your followers share your message is. Followers are a crude metric of popularity but we have an inkling that winning the Twitter game really won’t have much of anything to do with how many people click ‘follow’ on your profile. How do you value your followers? Do you have monthly objectives to increase your followership? How do you do that?

How can Twitter ROI be measured?

What We’re Hearing: It can’t — well, sort of. The great social media metrics question doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere anytime soon. While tracking followers and retweets is an easy way to map the growth of your audience and effectiveness of your engagement, translating that into a bottom line isn’t possible yet unless you’re selling something. What’s on your Twitter dashboard? What data is convincing your executives that a Twitter account is worth it?

What should companies do on Twitter?

CEC Hypothesis: Twitter should be a part of an overall social media strategy and anchored in a business problem or opportunity. Here are the core things you can do with social media and Twitter:

Listen: Capture insights and feedback from stakeholders
- Twitter is an unparalleled source for candid, real-time monitoring of stakeholder sentiment. Some companies have designated individuals who monitor company mentions on a Twitter client, such as Hootsuite. Others are enlisting their digital agencies to listen and share feedback with the corporate center.
Talk: Share information with stakeholders
- The most effective talking is the result of a clear understanding of what your Twitter audience wants to hear about and presenting that information in an engaging way. Most corporate accounts post company news and links to their web content, but creatively thinking about what will interest your audience offers even more possibilities.

Connect: Build relationships with and among stakeholders through responses and dialogue
- Twitter conversations may be a mile wide and an inch deep, but people really love to have their voices heard. Some communications teams are focusing their Twitter efforts on responding — to an impossibly varied range of comments and questions — as an engagement tool.

Energize: Spark advocacy and drive positive viral messages
- The Twitterverse can be fickle but if its heartstrings can be pulled it will take viral to remarkable extremes. Some companies are using Twitter to spark support for company initiatives, like Harley Davidson does for its Women Riders campaign.

So, what do you think? What big questions have you been wondering about your Twitter strategy? What are your plans for 2012?

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How Kraft Foods Communicates the Corporate Brand on Facebook

Latika Mahajan — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 18:00:01 +0000

Why does Marketing seem to have all the fun with new media? Brand managers get to experiment with flashy Facebook pages and micro-sites to drive product awareness and purchase. Corporate communicators are often relegated to simply Tweeting the company’s latest financial statements.

Not all Communications teams are accepting their fates as the “corporate” voice of the company! We’ve shared solid examples from Deloitte and MoneyGram who are using Facebook to unite global audiences around the company, not just its brands. Likewise, Kraft Foods’ Company Facebook page builds connections with stakeholders by providing updates on news and global initiatives.

We like the page because it’s working toward two main social media objectives: ‘listening’ and ‘connecting’ with stakeholders worldwide. This strategy is reflected in the design of its landing page, the choice of tabs, and rich global content.

So, what is it that makes the Kraft Foods – Corporate page ‘liked’ by its followers?

Defined raison d’être: Kraft Foods uses its corporate Facebook page as a common platform for all company news and global events and to listen and connect with its target audience. This distinguishes it from other Kraft Foods Facebook pages like the Kraft Recipes and Tips page which focuses on North American audiences or the Oreo page for cookie loyalists.
Targeted Audiences: Kraft Foods ensures that it distinguishes between its primary and secondary audiences, and pushes nuggets of information that are of interest to the primary audience (namely media, NGO’s and socially engaged individuals).
Branded Design and Content: The Kraft Foods – Corporate Facebook page embraces Kraft Foods’ brand identity by using brand colors and imagery. By posting Kraft Foods’ history, CSR initiatives, company announcements and polls, Kraft Foods’ page successfully brings the corporate brand to life.
Facebook Owners: Kraft Foods focuses on building a personalized touch to the ‘digital’ medium. In addition to introducing the social media team, Kraft Foods shares their photographs, area of expertise and favorite Kraft Foods brands. This approach of ‘know whom you’re talking to’ is continued further by the team in its interaction with Kraft Foods followers.

Kraft Foods’ – Corporate Facebook page shows how a company can use Facebook’s strengths and design it to suit its corporate goals. It’s informal and fun characteristic encourages consumers to share opinions and stay connected.

Visit our CEC Insight page on Kraft Foods’ Global Facebook Page to learn more about what the company is getting right on Facebook and the potential risks its up against, including:

High “pull” of well-known Kraft Foods Facebook pages
Establishing internal support

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What to Ghost Write for Your CEO’s Blog

Kayleigh O’Keefe — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:00:50 +0000

Dirty little (anecdotal) secret: Most CEOs don’t write their own blogs.

That’s right. Despite CEO’s best intentions to write frequently and informally, most communicators end up having to write—or heavily edit—these personal posts.

Ghostwriting your CEOs blog can be an exhausting endeavor! You have to come up with an idea, craft a post that mimics the CEO’s voice and vision, incorporate substantial edits from the CEO, make the post live, and then, wait, fingers-crossed, hoping that the post will receive enough comments or views to prove that blogging is indeed a worthy pursuit, which, of course, it may not be at all! CEC Members, visit our Leader to Employee Communication Topic Center to consider the appropriate channel for leadership communication given your objective.

CEO blogs come in a variety of audiences, intents, and styles, but for the purposes of this discussion, let’s focus on the CEO blog that sits on your corporate intranet and whose main audience is employees. If you’re going to have to write the post anyway, why not write about something that will have an impact on employee performance?

Here are my top 10 questions that your CEO’s next employee-facing blog post could answer:

What are the strategic goals of our organization? Which ones are the most ambitious? Why?
Which market trends should employees pay most attention to?
Which key markets matter most to our company? Will those be the same ones in 2020?
What are the risks our company is facing? How are we mitigating them?
In what ways might pending government regulation in key operating regions impact our company?
How have people or teams from across silos of the business come together to produce amazing results?
How is our company building an infrastructure that enables employees to communicate and collaborate more effectively?
Which of our competitors do you admire most and why?
What publications and people do you follow to stay informed on our business and industry?

10. What’s the most surprising customer or consumer trend you’ve seen develop over the last five years?

To be clear, I’m not advocating that your CEO spill your company’s proprietary secrets in a 500-word blog post; that just wouldn’t be smart business. What I am advocating is that your CEO shares the bigger picture trends and assumptions that most employees, who must focus on a small piece of the business, might fail to appreciate. Would you rather talk about the CEO’s upcoming marathon or newly adopted golden retriever? Read on to learn why that approach won’t move your organization forward.

Why Talking Trends Works Better than Being Personal

Employee’s personal connection to the company and exposure to market context are the two main drivers of their agility, the biggest driver of overall performance in a high-change environment. What’s more is that confidence in leadership has almost zero impact on agility. CEC Members, rely on our research and data on Building a Change-Ready Organization to help teach executives why this is true.

And yet, most CEO blogs that I’ve heard about or come across aim squarely at building employee confidence in leadership. In fact, in times of uncertainty, CEOs ask Communications to help her/him be more transparent, visible, and confident in the eyes of employees. S/he wants to seem personable, like “one of us” to exhort additional effort from employees to keep the company sailing straight even if the waters are choppy.

In the end, the key is to help employees (and potentially other stakeholders) understand how the CEO and leadership team are thinking. Sometimes the CEO and leadership are too close to the company strategy to recognize that most employees aren’t aware of what’s being thought of at the top. To help you help your CEO, consider the information and perspective that the CEO has that, if shared, would help the rest of the organization to think more strategically on a daily basis, not just at the annual strategy summit.

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