We’ve been asked by a lot of C-Levels lately about how much of their personal life and voice they should expose in their corporate “conversations”.   Not to obfuscate too much, but our answer is invariably “it depends”.    I hope that we can all agree at this point that ROI for social media has been demonstrated and at worst, agree that all organizations in all verticals are impacted by the adoption of social media and networking as mechanisms for consumers to express their opinions (United Airlines YouTube, Whole Foods, etc. etc.), but the question for many executives remains “Should I individually participate in these conversational arenas and what guidelines govern the exposure of me as an individual v. a corporate citizen?”

We can debate John Mackey’s personal opinion about health care reform until carpal tunnel sets in, but I would rather remind all of us of some basic tenets of social conversation and prudence and remember our key success factors:

1) Be genuine.    Individual voice and opinion are the hallmarks of our social internetworking and in many corporations define the uniqueness, variety, and personalization that is the core of their products and services.   Officers and key executives must be mindful, however, that their personal politics and opinions are perceived as representative of their corporate positions, so should be mindful of this intermingling.

2) Interact.  Has your organization established policies about executive social media and networking participation and if not, perhaps you should before taking on the role yourself.   We advise all of our clients to develop a  social media approach that is aligned with overall corporate, marketing, sales, and customer relations strategies as a first step.  The cultural etiquette and expectations of social media are that we are engaging in conversation, dialogue, and responses with our audiences, not merely unilaterally publishing facts.   Although certain channels may be appropriate for CEO or officer messaging, most are more dynamic and require more attention.

3) Provide value.    As truly well-thought and argued your personal opinion may be, the relevance of your topic and the content that you offer to your customers, prospects, and employees should always be the first consideration.   I’ve recently been reading a number of posts on www.theconsumercollective.com that provide some very compelling statistics regarding consumers willingess to defect from brands and services not due to a reverse in perceived value, but because they feel our published opinions, thoughts, diatribes, digital “nuggets of wisdom” are quite frankly, boring.

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