If you aren’t an exceptional brand, a top influencer, or the current occupant of the White House, then I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings. You’re lucky if .0035% of your Fans and Followers even sees your post or tweet these days.

I hear many excuses from the leadership team why they don't have a strong social footprint, but none of them stack up. They still think that social media is something that the guy with the beard, or the girl with the tattoo in marketing do - so it's no wonder you rarely see a CMO or others in the leadership team do which is producing regular blogs which is evidence to support the view that they don't have a clue about what a 'content led' strategy really is.

Back in the day your CMO would be the brains and powerhouse between your brand staying front of mind over your competitor in order the customer/client would choose your brand over another. This was done by spending huge sums on 'advertising', for many this is still the way stuff gets done and it's really hurting your business.

A lot of what they're still doing is out of a 20th Century 'Don Draper's Madmen' playbook of marketing. 

So, lets ask what today is an extremely important question for all companies which is does your CMO and others in the leadership team 'walk the social media talk'?

As brands and companies in the 21st socially savvy Century move away from the one trick pony of intrusive advertising and into the scary 'we can't control it' space of social media authenticity is everything. Social Media is what 'consumers say you are' not what 'you say you are and if your not 'relevant to me' or my tribe then I'm not really interested.

A brand who wants to remain relevant and authentic today obviously need to understand how to operate on social media platforms and learn to 'listen'. Yet to do this there's a requirement to invest in a sustained level of 'content output'. In particular from leadership teams and especially from your CMO. 

This is important particularly as the mindset that shifts towards creating 'relevant' content, and can consistently engage a 'relevant' audience is critical. This is because the currency on 'social' is not 'likes' or 'seen' (impressions) its all about engagement, and the willingness of people to 'want' to share your story with others.

Social is measured by real time company wide visible tangible metrics, and based upon how you're building relationships, not numbers. You'll know if your building relationships (not numbers) because you'll see engagement (positive or negative) and this can only be done with authenticity in how you go about your social media strategy.

Things have changed, the power of social media is now greater than ever before, there are now 3.8 billion people on social media around the world and LinkedIn with 675 million registered members is one of the most powerful business platforms there is.

There are 3 key pillars associated with a really strong social media presence in the business world;

1. A relateable personal profile - based on 'who' you are, not what you do.
2. The ability to build relationships - grow your network in a social way with a business objective.
3. The ability to be able to share what you know - consistent creation, production and sharing of knowledge about the subject matter you have experience with.

Every company we benchmark against all 3 of these fall way short, personal profiles on LI are still way off the mark, people still don't publish a good photo (or make it visible), they are yet to truly understand the potency of the platform for personal growth, development and branding.

And very few of the CMO's I talk to rarely produce a personal blog. So, very much definitely a case of not 'walking the social talk'.

With the right training you, you're leadership team and your employees can develop all the right 'Superpowers' to leverage 'what you know' to an audience keen to get some authenticity in a digital world that in the past has been the preserve of 'intrusive advertising' combined with overly sanitised messages signed off by the corporate brand police.