I spend a lot of time of time on the road speaking to Vistage groups, doing keynotes, providing workshops, and sitting on panels. The topic?  Social media for executives. The one thing all of my audiences have in common is they all are business leaders and they don’t understand how to translate social media to their companies.

I’m here to tell you social media is not for the younger generation. It’s a shift in how all of us are communicating and it’s a shift in how we get our information.  Gone are the days of companies shouting their messages to us over and over again, hoping to build brand awareness by the mass. Now we decide what information we want to get and how we want to receive it. If we have information overload, we control what we read and pay attention to every day.

Through speaking, writing, and coaching, I’m helping business leaders understand the return-on-investment of social media and why the shift in communication is pertinent to the growth of their companies.

Following are nine topics to get you started on a social media program.

  1. Is social media a sales tool?
  2. Is there a philosophy to using social media?
  3. Can I hire an intern to do our social media for us?
  4. What is the first thing I should do?
  5. Should I have a blog? How do I create content?
  6. How much time should we spend on social media?
  7. What is the ROI?
  8. How do we set benchmarks and goals?
  9. How do we monitor the Web and the social networks?

Social media is not a fad – it’s here to stay. What are you going to do to get started? Or, if you already participate in social media, what other ideas do you have for efficiency?

Gini Dietrich

Gini Dietrich is the founder, CEO, and author of Spin Sucks, host of the Spin Sucks podcast, and author of Spin Sucks (the book). She is the creator of the PESO Model and has crafted a certification for it in partnership with Syracuse University. She has run and grown an agency for the past 15 years. She is co-author of Marketing in the Round, co-host of Inside PR, and co-host of The Agency Leadership podcast.

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