Social Media in the Boardroom – Notes for Board Members

On Tuesday 22 March a group of new and aspiring company directors came together to hear board member and social media specialist Simone Douglas present on social media in the boardroom.

These are some of the main take-away points that I noted from Simone’s presentation:
• The decision on whether to join social media or not is being made for you: we now spend less than 7 hours sleeping versus 10 hours online engaging with digital (emails, social media, etc.)
• You need investment (time and money) to achieve cut-through on social channels
• Prepare an escalation policy – e.g. if X happens, Y has to happen. Know the point when matters need to be escalated to the board, particularly when a crisis hits.
• Relate your social strategy to your corporate strategy
• Understand that there are risks to not being on social media (even just to use it as a listening post)
• Ensure you cover the basics: maintain control of admin credentials (particularly if you are firing staff who have access permissions)
• Community Management is a very unique skill – consider investing in a great community manager or outsourcing this task to a capable agency (like Social Media AOK)
• Pick your social media platform: you don’t need to be on everything, but be on something that best suits your business’ strategic needs.

Social Media is still seen around the boardroom as somewhat of an uncertainty and an unnecessary activity. Given that it’s been around for a while now, you would think we’d have our heads around it!

Part of the challenge is that it is a constantly moving and changing environment, and social media can be used across many areas of the organisation. So it becomes overwhelming.

As more and more consumers – including businesses – undertake their purchase decision journey online, a digital approach to business is no longer becoming a choice, but rather a necessity. Successfully utilising social media for this purpose whilst ensuring that the organisation does not open itself to risk or competitive attack is something that Simone and her team does for many organisations. If you would like some more personalised assistance with your social media activity, please feel free to contact Simone (and if you mention Get on Board Australia, you can receive a complimentary 30-minute interview to assess where social media is at for your organisation).

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