How Leaders Can Use Social Media To Influence

70 percent of employers use social media to screen candidates during the hiring process.

The competition for leadership roles is fierce, with more and more people vying for promotions and looking for the easiest way to be recognised as the right person for the role. You can’t afford to let your resume do all the heavy lifting, however, given that 70 percent of employers use social media to screen candidates during the hiring process (CareerBuilder survey, 2018).

It’s a tool that can be put to good use. By creating a strategic social media presence, you’re able to influence the way people see you (including future employers, your team and even headhunters). From sharing your opinions on important issues to how you engage online, it all demonstrates your values and the things that are important to you, so let’s make sure it’s being done in a way that is strategic.

There are five main stages that you need to work through to create influence online as a leader.

Stage 1: Decide who you want to influence

As a leader you know that there are many layers within businesses and organisations. If you try to use social media to influence everyone you will end up spending all your time on social media rather than doing your job.

At this stage, it’s important to choose if you want to influence those who you have around you now or those you want to be positively influenced in the future (think: for future interviews).

Read: 4 Ways to Juggle Multiple Roles Without Burning Out

Stage 2: What are you going to share?

Social media is just that: Social. Media. Which means that you need to be aware and strategic about what you’re putting up online whilst ensuring that what you’re sharing isn’t always about work.

It’s important that you are creating and sharing your own intellectual property (what you think and your opinions along with the evidence to back it up) is crucial.

For example, if you want to use it to build personal influence, then it’s crucial that you share your thoughts on key issues as well as personal issues that you stand by.

If you want to use it to influence teams, then it’s important that you share things that are going to inspire, motivate, educate and engage them. Remember: we want them to be positively influenced by you so they’re more engaged with you as a leader.

Step 3: What platforms?

To create influence quickly, you need to be posting frequently on the platform of choice, preferably daily.

You have, in reality, two main choices for disseminating your message that we talked about above: LinkedIn or Facebook. People spend on average 10mins per day on LinkedIn and tend to look at it more as a business communication tool. If you are looking to make a better, more authentic connection, then you would choose Facebook. People spend on average 40+mins per day on the platform and are more likely to see your posts on there.

Stage 4: How often should you share on social media?

To create influence quickly, you need to be posting frequently on the platform of choice, preferably daily.

This will see your name popping up in the newsfeed of your audience regularly, and thus keeps you at the top of everyone’s minds. Even if your audience online are speed-reading what you post, they’re still seeing your face, which leads to faster impact.

Stage 5: What kinds of posts should you put up?

Social media platforms are rewarding users for posting video content by way of increased distribution in the newsfeed. In terms of getting more eyes on your content, video is a must.

It’s important that you are creating and sharing your own intellectual property (what you think and your opinions along with the evidence to back it up) is crucial.

Plan on doing a video once per week, talking to your audience the way you would to your friends or peers. Keep it light, entertaining and informative.

Additionally, on the other days, share text posts (written by you or from your own publications), photos of you and articles that inspire you or that you find interesting – that you know will also inspire the teams that you want to influence.

Utilising these five stages will have you seen as authentic and transparent both as a leader and as a human. It creates a way for potential employers to learn more about you before offering you an interview, which helps both them and you. Further, it creates connection and engagement with teams. and is the most efficient tool we have right now for building influence.