LinkedIn has sat in the top three social networks for a while now. It’s the most popular professional network, but only 35% of users actually visit it every day. In fact, 16% only visit it a couple of times a month.

The frequency of visits isn’t the only way LinkedIn differs from its rivals Facebook and Twitter. The fact that only 20% of users click on adverts within LinkedIn would suggest they make more revenue from their services, like job searching and advertising subscriptions (39% of users pay for one of their services), unlike Facebook.

Do you use LinkedIn on a regular basis?

Source: Mashable

Interviewed in the current edition of the Harvard Business Review, Disney CEO Bob Iger has some pertinent comments on social media issues.

He sees social media – especially Facebook – as an opportunity to gain access to fans of Disney and provide them with experiences that are welcoming. He says Disney has started to engage with mums who are blogging and explains that these bloggers are now being invited to events. He was sitting recently with a group of bloggers on a cruise ship and reflected how the world had changed a lot.

He is not a strong advocate of getting customers to help create content. ‘I’ve found that when you take a committee approach to creating, it usually fails. It dissipates one person’s deep passions for an idea or a creative direction,’ he reflects.

We had a really interesting Social Media Leadership Forum members session yesterday.

These were some of the key issues that came up:

CEOs who sign up to social media can make a difference, however middle management can act as a drag on activity.

Senior executives need to know that social media is a series of different platforms through which key company messages can be distributed. The aims of communication remain the same, the means is changing.

Different organisations require different approaches to getting social media going. For example, a more academic company culture might require a report to demonstrate the fundamental changes in news and information distribution and consumption.

Far sighted managers often have to ‘just get on with it’ to make things happen. To prevent corporate inertia preventing necessary change, new ground has to be broken by pioneers. Then the company catches up, recognises the value and marshalls resources behind these new opportunities.

Demonstrating value is crucial for company buy-in, whether this is showing customer feedback or illustrating case studies of what competitors are up to.

Legal departments are in danger of losing the plot. Legal teams needs to wake up to the realities of social media, otherwise they are going to become typecast as reactionaries who are utterly out of touch with the modern world. It is crucial that their advice is practical. They should be looking to be informed facilitators, not obstacles. Nor should they lead policy. They should be a back up resource, like libel teams at newspapers.

Experimentation is crucial as well, giving people the chance to make mistakes and learn.

Creating ‘social’ workplaces is becoming increasingly important, in terms of cutting down email and promoting more efficient ways of working. It also has a clear impact on the quality of external social media communications.

The more ‘social’ you are as a business in the way you share information the more relevant your external communications will naturally become  for your key audiences.

Internal video communications can have a major impact on how information is shared and how executives are perceived.

The unfolding hacking scandal is a great example of how news production, distribution and exchange have fundamentally changed.

Ostensibly about a traditional paper-based newspaper group, it is in fact the whole online arena where the scandal has been predominantly played out, with online newspapers updating their headlines in minutes, and key players like the Guardian running live blogs.

Videos have been shared and secret recordings of internal news international meetings have been passed through social networks. With the editor of the Guardian and other key journalists tweeting, as well as key Labour opposition figures, social media has had a key role to play in shaping the unfolding narrative. And it will continue to do so – imagine
how Murdoch’s testimony to MPs will be distributed and commented upon.

And let’s not forget the role of social media in generating customer complaints to CEOs, demanding that ads be pulled from News of the World. This action was coordinated using social media networks. The key themes of social media are collaboration: see the ad activity mentioned above.

A key theme is openness: we are seeing mounting calls by the day for greater transparency all round, in dealings with the media. Another key principle of social media is integrity: you cannot hide anymore when information is so easily shared and distributed, and it is so easy to expose wrong doing.

If you are in breach of these principles in some deep meaningful way, then you are likely to be in trouble. These themes are being actively played out as part of the new ecosystem of news.

Within this context, you can also see clearly how limited traditional media communications can be. Briefings on the phone could influence key bloggers. However, if you want to have any chance of influencing events then you have to be blogging or tweeting, otherwise you are just not part of the critical discourse.