How to start your executive on social media

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MANILA — Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is one of the most active development leaders on social media. On his Twitter account, the World Health Organization aid chief shares almost every bit of his professional life, such as his meetings, state and field visits, and WHO’s work. Sometimes, he’s able to sneak in rainbow photos from his office in Geneva.

While it certainly helped him gain more influence in the global health space and establish his brand of leadership, his engagement on the platform has also helped champion WHO’s work — a much needed effort following a stormy few years in which the United Nations aid agency was battered with criticism for its handling of the Ebola outbreak.

His presence and engagement on the platform has been positively received by members of the global health community, as it allows them to interact with the WHO aid chief as well as understand his perspectives on issues such as gender equality and universal health coverage. And that seems to present a rather convincing case for other executives to follow.

But that may not be so easy if the executive isn’t particularly savvy when it comes to social media. Matthias Lufkens, managing director for digital at global public relations and communications firm Burson-Marsteller and lead author of the 2017 Twiplomacy report on international organizations’ usage of social media, told Devex how he tried — and failed — to convince Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, to use Twitter.

“What happens is that basically you can’t make them tweet,” he said. “I’ve tried several times, but you know, he said it’s not for me, which is sad. I said, ‘you know your friends are here’ and so on, but it didn’t work.”

Sometimes, peer pressure can help.

“You can say, ‘if you want to be part of the conversations, you have to be there.’ Maybe that has helped also the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, because he was one of the few U.N. candidates who did not have a social media profile compared to Helen Clark and others. But he understood that he had to be present, and so he opened a Twitter account the day he started,” Lufkens said.

Unlike Tedros, Guterres likely has a team who handles his Twitter account, said Lufkens. But the digital expert doesn’t see any problem with that, as long as the messages are in line with the U.N. secretary general’s thinking and are supportive of the initiative. Pope Francis does the same. He has a team who posts tweets on his behalf, but he reads and approves them before they are posted on the social media platform.

It’s beneficial to have the person/s in charge close to the chief executive or leader to ensure the post is reflective of his or her voice.

“I think that is very important, and basically shows that it’s possible to do it as teamwork,” Lufkens said.

Having a team that works with the chief executive on social media also helps in avoiding potential mishaps, which could occur in response to a negative comment or sensitive issues. While social media can serve as an avenue for dynamic discussions with a range of stakeholders, leaders mustn’t forget to be careful and diplomatic in their comments and responses, as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance Chief Executive Officer Seth Berkley mentioned he does on Twitter in this video interview.

But for organizations who are just about to start their executives on social media, Lufkens suggests creating private accounts first where organizations can train their executives and help them understand how social media works, and what makes for a good post and what doesn’t.

“You have to train the chief executive to post a tweet a day, a tweet a week, and do that for a couple of weeks on a protected account where you can basically say, ‘well this one won’t go, you have to rewrite this,’ rather than just letting them tweet out to the world,” he said.

“That training is so important to set, suggest, and help them refine their way of sharing information. It's something we all have to learn: How to write in 280 characters? How to make our message interesting and engaging to our followers? The worst is seeing those tweets of fruitful meetings with so and so. What’s a fruitful meeting? If they put a fruit bowl there, then that’s a fruitful meeting.”

Organizations might want to brief their executives as well on how to do proper selfies: “You should never take pictures from below. It makes people look bad.”

For organizations already working to get their executives on social, Lufkens also suggests considering setting up an institutional account like that of @POTUS or the @Pontifex instead of a personal one that carries the executive’s name. This way, when the executive leaves after his or her term is over, the organization doesn’t have to create a new account and start from scratch for the next person who takes on the job. The U.N.’s International Telecommunication Union and the World Food Programme have already done this for their leaders, under the account names @ITUSecGen and @WFPChief.