I received the note below from LinkedIn and it reminded me of a handful of key strategic relationship best practices:

• We’re a visual society – we may not remember people’s names, but faces are familiar to us.  
• In a turbulent economy where people are going to constantly change jobs, titles, roles, responsibilities and geographic locations, you must keep updated information on your contacts.
• Social media is an enabler of strategic relationships, NOT a replacement of it.  Use these updates to proactively touch base with your portfolio of relationships.
• Critical that your off-line and on-line presence is in-line.  Consistently update your network with your progress, key accomplishment, questions, sharing of best practices, and unique insights.
• A fundamental value in our portfolio of relationships is our ability to connect others to one another – do this consistently without expecting anything in return

So, here are a handful of questions to ask of your portfolio of strategic relationships: Read the rest of this entry »

In an earlier blog we discussed 5 questions that will start a dialogue about social media in your organization. Here are 5 more questions to keep the conversation going:

How do we describe our corporate culture?

Do you or your employees have a clear idea of your culture? It will come out, so be prepared. If your management team is more paranoid than North Korea, don’t expect to see a rosy picture put forth to potential customers. Corporate culture is one area that definitely shows up on social media.

What is the line between personal and professional branding?

If an employee posts information concerning his or her company on a personal page, who owns the content? Can you influence what someone posts in his or her spare time about himself or herself? The short answer is that if the person shares with the world that he or she is an employee of the company, then that person is responsible to the company for protecting the brand.

What do we want the world to know about us as a company?

Your employees are ambassadors for your company, for better or worse. For many prospective buyers, their first point of introduction may be through the social interactions of an employee, whether professional or personal. If you don’t have a clear message, what do you think will happen in the market? Read the rest of this entry »

I introduced a number of new social networking applications and wrote about the impact of LinkedIn, Spoke, Ryze, Jigsaw, and YouTube on our daily lives. Since social media has become so ubiquitous in the past couple of years and now there is a plethora of books available on social networking and social media, this has provided me with the opportunity to take a different path—one of asking how social media is affecting our relationships. What are some best practices for organizations to craft a compelling social media policy? How will social media create new roles and realms of responsibilities within and external to the enterprise? And as evidenced by one of my most popular blog posts, what will tomorrow’s social leaders look like?

Let me start by saying that the worst thing you can do on social media is to sell; doing so unequivocally turns everybody off. Most people will disengage when confronted with overt and covert sales pitches—personal or professional. Read the rest of this entry »

You may have heard that it is better to be known for content than it is to simply be known. When I say Good to Great, Execution, In Search of Excellence, Blue Ocean Strategy, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Blink, or Freakonomics, what comes to mind? To many, it is the thought leaders behind these well-known works.

When you develop compelling and unique content, you become known. Combine that with relevant, practical, pragmatic context in which the consumers of that information can use your content to improve their conditions, and now you’re sought after. You are asked to speak, moderate panels, and share your experiences, unique insights, and independent perspectives. Think of a trade show. You can exhibit there; you can set up a booth and pass out marketing materials. You can attend the show and sit through content sessions. Or you can speak or moderate a panel at the event.

Which do you believe would have the greatest impact on your personal and professional brand? Read the rest of this entry »

I was recently interviewed by Fast Company Expert Blogger Seth Kahan. The following is his post…

FC Expert Blog

Middle East Leadership Lessons

BY FC Expert Blogger Seth Kahan Today

The consensus at a recent social market leadership workshop for executives was that senior executives and CEOs in particular are not social today. Forrester Research confirms that very few CEOs or board members at top global companies have any material presence on popular social media sites. Our own research of Fortune 500 CEOs indicates a similar silence; very few have a social profile anywhere.

This abstinence, fueled by the more vulnerable, publically traded companies extends even to CEOs of venerable technology companies:  Eric Schmidt (Google) Read the rest of this entry »