However, the psychology of creating a dialogue in social media goes much further. You need to think how you act as a leader inside your company and with your clients. Your employees have created a profile of yourself based on your live performance and reputation in the company. It is how you act with your people in everyday work situations and company meetings. You get similar response in social media as in normal meetings. If you don't ever provoke open dialogue in your meetings it may be hard to achieve that in social media either.
DON'T ACT LIKE A "SPEAKING HEAD" OR PARROT
You don't get fans and followers by acting like a "speaking head" with facts, figures and powerpoints. It is boring. Don't act as a parrot either, repeating only the corporate messages and referring to the links and reports of other wise people. People expect their leaders to be genuine human beings, who have their own personal opinions, feelings and passion.
Think like a rock star. Take your audience when you make your live or social media "performance". Forget the corporate bullshit sometimes and say what you think and feel. Create your new, genuine leadership profile. Make your performance. Get feedback. This may sound naive but it makes a big difference.
BECOME A HUMAN BEING
My problem as a young leader was that, I was shy and did not like making public presentations. I prepared everything very carefully and I was "hiding" behind my powerpoint slides. I was normally very convincing but that did not create emotional connection and collaboration with my audience and people. I had to find ways to change my executive profile and working habits to be more engaging and collaborative. I had been using social media at work since mid 1980's but I was not able to create good collaboration there either until I changed my leadership behavior.
MY KEY LESSON LEARNED
For a long time, I thought that creating innovations, having right facts, making decisions, managing change and high performance results would make me a good leader. Later as a CEO of 1000 to 4000 people I became more and more convinced that I need to win the hearts and minds of my people to achieve constant, superior performance. Creating a Great Place to Work became very top on my agenda.
IT TAKES COURAGE
It takes courage to throw away your tie and position status. It takes courage to expose yourself with open agenda and questions. It takes courage to ask for help and ideas for business challenges. In some cultures you may even be criticized as a leader if you don't have all the answers ready for your business issues. It takes courage to express your personal feelings and make your own statements. It takes courage to admit the mistakes you have made. It takes courage to make public mistakes and laugh to yourself. It takes courage to become "one of the guys" in the meetings and social media discussions. But that's when you start getting fans and followers in your community.
CEO - ACT LIKE A ROCK STAR
I tried to change my executive business profile by exposing myself more personally in company meetings and in social media discussions. I tried to get more fans and followers even in company Christmas Parties with a little help of my guitar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pWvpjXkpzg
it all worked for me well and has been so fun...
