Q. At a senior leadership level, how do you think social media is perceived?

a) As something to be feared.
b) Something to be embraced.
c) Social what?
d) Useful as part of a communication mix

If you said a), you'd be correct.

While the adoption of social media tools and platforms has significantly narrowed the communication gap between leaders and employees, it's also increased the fear of loss of control at the top of organizations, according to Lee Hopkins, one of Australia's leading thinkers on online communication strategy.

In Melcrum's new Social Media report, How to use social media to solve critical communication issues, Hopkins says: "Executives have long held the erroneous belief that they could 'control the message'. As communicators we have always known that to be nonsense."

Subsequently, the hype that surrounds social media tools often leads executives to dismiss them as nothing more than a fad and place a barrier in front of business adoption, despite the many benefits it can bring.

So, if you're piloting a social tool in your organization, forget the jargon and speak in a language executives will understand. Coca Cola Enterprises' European communications manager, Neil Jenkins says, "Business leaders quickly switch off if you start talking about things like micro-blogging, hashtags and followers. Mention collaboration, knowledge sharing and productivity and they start to listen again."

And they will listen. Research carried out by Melcrum, which forms the basis of the report, also discovered leaders embracing "two-way employee communication". Find out more about the report here!

Read more about Jenkins' social media work with the CCE on the Internal Comms Hub.

Until next time,

Nishwa

P.S. The UK SCM Summit is taking place on 11th-13th October, in London. Email us if you want to be notified when the full programme is available.

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