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The power of ‘social profile’

Social media platforms are critical to personal branding. They offer the perfect means to showcase your unique qualities, skills, and values to a global audience. Simply put, if you don’t have an online presence, you risk losing market share to company leaders who do.

First impressions are particularly impactful in the professional world. Developing a strong executive profile on social media can be a game changer for leaders looking to build their reputations and make a lasting impact. It will also add credibility to their thought leadership claims.

Also, people want to do business with those they feel they know, like and trust – building a solid social media presence based on personal connection can help to achieve this. A report by FTI Consulting found a whopping 92% of professionals are more likely to trust a company whose senior executives are using social media.

Showcasing your values and personality demonstrates a human side, driving appeal among potential customers. Execs with an interesting, values-driven profile can drive business benefits via social media. Those just posting rehashed or canned content – like motivational quotes – are often pulling up short.

Personal branding should be ongoing and consistent. Leveraging social media – and other communication platforms such as blogging, speaking engagements or interviews – can help increase recognition for yourself or your company. This can ultimately lead to increased trust, more partnerships, and better customer engagement.

Social profile to support SEO

Executive profiling and leadership branding have become more important as tools to support broader brand comms like PR and SEO. Journalists will check executive social media profiles when considering pitches for commentary or interview questions, and Google wants to see content clearly authored by those with real experience and expertise to satisfy its EEAT-based (experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust) quality content guidelines if you want to rank in its index.

Here’s a quick breakdown of what each term means:

  • Experience: when evaluating content, Google takes the writer’s first-hand experience on the topic at hand.
  • Expertise: refers to a content creator or website’s knowledge of and skill in a particular subject matter.
  • Authority: relates to the content creator or website’s credibility and influence in its niche or industry.
  • Trustworthiness: this relates to the content creator or website’s overall reliability and integrity, comprising qualities such as accuracy, transparency, and moral code.

A well-maintained social profile is a great way of demonstrating EEAT – especially if you’re using a network like LinkedIn, which gives you lots of ways to demonstrate experience and expertise via dedicated sections for qualifications, certifications, work experience, recommendations etc. Take a look at our guide on utilising LinkedIn to support EEAT for everything you need to know.

Associated with this is ‘reconciliation’ – this was described by Google as the process of associating content online with a single author – Google search advocate John Mueller said: “So my recommendation here would be to at least link to a common, or kind of like a central place, where you say everything comes together for this author. Which could be something like a social network profile page, for example, and use that across the different author pages that you have when you’re writing, so that when our systems look at an article and they see an author page associated with that, they can recognize this is the same author as the person who wrote something else.”

Talk to our social media team to discuss a social profiling strategy for your execs.

Choosing the right platform(s)

Not all social media platforms are created equal. Each serves a different purpose, with some better suited for certain goals than others. Pick one that aligns with your target audience –where do the people you want to build a profile with hang out?

For example, for B2B executives, LinkedIn offers an excellent platform for sharing long-form content and establishing connections with potential partners and customers. It’s also not as fast-paced and time-intensive as X (which we’re all still calling Twitter). Find out all you need to know about building a solid profile in our rundown B2B LinkedIn: the essential guide.

LinkedIn reveals that four in five users are business decision-makers and its audience has 2x the buying power of the average online user. That means strong, impactful content is critical – more than half of these users read thought leadership from a company before choosing whether to do business with them.

However, since mobile usage continues to dominate, your LinkedIn content strategy shouldn’t just comprise 1,000-word thought leadership pieces. It should also make provision for mobile-friendly formats like images and videos. The latter, in particular, plays a crucial role in the B2B sales funnel, as 70% of buyers watch at least one video before purchasing a product or service.

Variety is key – a LinkedIn feed needs both long-form content and quick, easy-to-digest pieces to serve your niche audience.

It’s also important to note what you shouldn’t post. Since mid-2022, LinkedIn started giving users the option to see less political content, so it’s best to avoid this. The platform is also actively reducing low-quality content on the network, such as the excessive use of polls and posts that encourage users to engage via the like/reaction button to boost reach.

Focus on sharing your knowledge and insights and adding value to others with the content your share – that’s the order of the day for LinkedIn success.

X used to be a dark horse in the B2B marketing race. It followed closely behind LinkedIn as the second-largest social media platform for B2B marketing and appealed to a significant number of business decision-makers. Users of this platform were also older, more educated, and higher earners, which could well be the people you want to reach.

Under Elon Musk’s leadership there has been contention over user numbers and growth of the platform, and it’s become an unmoderated space that many users have now left. The platform’s lost two heads of trust and safety back-to-back in actions that speak a thousand words. In short, if you’re not already established on X, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to build an audience for yourself on it now.

Remember, social media audiences want community, connection and authenticity. So, use straightforward language in your content that acknowledges their challenges and offers ways to tackle them.

Think from the outset about the tone of voice you want to have – authoritative, humorous, or challenging – and stick to it. Whatever you decide, be authentic. People can spot a fake from a mile away. Feel free to use emojis if they help communicate your message, and don’t be afraid to share personal stories and experiences. Be transparent about the obstacles you’ve faced and share the solutions that worked for you.

Talk to our social media team to discuss a social profiling strategy for your execs.

Creating content

Establishing an authentic, respected online presence comes down to creating great B2B social content and is essential for building your executive profile and authority. It’s a long-term effort that requires consistency, especially to build trust, recognition, and influence.

Content that connects with your followers doesn’t have to be all bells and whistles – you don’t have to spend loads of time creating expertly designed guides, videos or images. But one key requirement to establish credibility is that the content must be genuine and insightful. Posts that help people understand a complex issue or solve a problem work really well, and content shot with a phone – either photographic or video – is excellent for demonstrating authenticity.

You’ll know which trends are making waves in your sector. It could be a new piece of landmark legislation being passed or something that’s been in the news. What does it mean for you and your clients? What advice or support do you have? How can you add to the story? Effective B2B social media content can simply be you expressing an expert opinion – filmed or written up – and publishing it on your social channels.

Being on social media is being part of a network of individuals with similar challenges, issues, and markets. Take inspiration from them, have conversations, and build useful content from your experience and expertise. Frequently asked questions are also a great source from which to generate content ideas.

How to stay active

One of the best ways to build your executive brand on social media is to be active. Your social media pages aren’t meant to be static – share content regularly and engage with your followers through comments, likes and shares.

Furthermore, identify and connect with other key industry thought leaders and influencers, including journalists. Explore opportunities for collaboration by reaching out to these individuals, sharing content, or even featuring/tagging them in your content. Engaging with them and sharing/expanding on their opinions is a great way to strengthen your reputation as a thought leader.

The more active you are, the more people will see and learn about you, and the more it will help build those all-important EEAT signals.

LinkedIn touts itself as the platform that helps build economic opportunity for users, so it prioritises relevant, high quality content and promotes posts and comments that drive engagement.

You should aim to post at least once a week and spend time nurturing your network – like share and comment to make sure you show up in search results and add value to your .

Think about:

  • Who you want to talk to – who’s your target audience(s)
  • What’s important to them?
  • What problems do they face?
  • What expertise, opinions and experience can you share to offer value?

When curating your LinkedIn content, focus on authenticity and trust. Make sure every post offers knowledge, value and insight to strengthen your personal brand and position you as a trusted expert.

Let your personality shine through – keep it professional and relevant but don’t shy away from your unique voice. This personal touch helps keep your network engaged.

Experiment with formats to drive engagement – videos, memes, photos, graphics and even longer posts with no image can all work well on LinkedIn. If you’re sharing an external link – that’s fine – but don’t assume your audience is going to navigate away from LinkedIn and read the piece. You’re best-off summarising the key points and adding your expert view or opinion to make sure it lands well.

Check out our social media content creation guide for more tips.

Talk to our social media team to discuss a social profiling strategy for your execs.

Measuring success

It’s essential to measure your results so that you can track your progress and make necessary adjustments. LinkedIn offers a rich selection of analytics – sifting through them and adopting a trial-and-error approach will produce good results.

Start by using the data to review your posts at least once a month, both those that landed and those that didn’t. Try to log variables like format, type of information, time of day and day of the week that get the most engagement on your page. This regular review will form the basis of your strategy.

Valuable LinkedIn stats to look at are average post engagement (reactions, shares and comments) and the number of site and direction clicks.

Be mindful that this process is ongoing, so don’t expect results overnight. Building momentum on social media takes time. Just keep a close eye on progress towards your end goals and the results will start rolling in.

Call on the experts

We live in a world where personal brands are starting to make a bigger difference in sales and marketing than company brands. But creating a social media presence that drives business results is daunting, so many businesses opt to call in the cavalry.

If you need help building your executive profile, get in touch. Our team can manage your online profile, develop your content, and coach you to make sure you’re recognised as an expert in your industry.

Our leadership branding programme, Brand You, is tailored to help high-calibre business leaders, entrepreneurs, and directors create and leverage a brand to achieve their goals. We can execute the programme standalone or integrated into our B2B PR, SEO and social media services for brands.

Talk to our social media team to discuss a social profiling strategy for your execs.

DefinitionheadsOct22

Written by Lou Watson-Dowell, Head of Digital PR and Social Media at Definition.

Updated on 13/06/2024.

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