Three-quarters of executives wants their chief executive officer to become the social face of their brand, a new study from KRC Research and Weber Shandwick has revealed.

That’s because eight in 10 executives believe CEO sociability improves company reputation. 630 executives were interviewed and the vast majority wants their CEOs to use social media channels and engage with customers more frequently.

The benefits of a social CEO

The report actually predicts that the number of CEOs participating in social media will increase by 50 per cent in the next five years as people’s need to put a face to a brand and see who’s behind a company grows.

Some companies may be tempted to offload this responsibility on someone other than the CEO, but it should remembered that with a unique position comes a unique ability to influence how people feel about a company.

A social CEO can:

• Humanise the company

• Boost the company’s reputation

• Improve business results

• Show the company is innovative

• Set a social example for employees

Clearly all these duties can be carried out by someone other than a CEO, but it’s very rare for a company to have an employee who is better placed to lead from the front on these matters.

So, it’s time for CEOs to start taking social media seriously and learn how to use it to their businesses’ benefit.

They need to understand that social media takes time and it’s not just about updating the company’s blog or a social account like Facebook or LinkedIn with annoying promotional messages that customers will probably ignore.

CEOs should use social platforms to engage with conversation with existing and potential customers. They also need to understand that their social media activity should revolve around their audience. It’s all about the needs, wants and desires of the people a firm is trying to reach. It shouldn’t be all about the company.

The CEO Blogger

A blog is a great way to introduce a CEO to customers as it provides a solid platform to which other social activities can be anchor.

However, content needs to be well-written and helpful. Try and stay away from dull posts about what you had for breakfast and instead focus on tips and advice that will help people out.

Engaging in conversation and replying to comments will help gain customers’ trust, especially if they come right from the top.

In fact, the report showed that 32 percent of the executives with a socially active CEO believed comments posted by CEOs on social media channels are more credible, compared to 24 percent of executives who deemed CEO comments quoted by news media to be more credible.

The habits of highly social CEOs

Aside from blogging, Weber Shandwick’s report outlines several habits of highly social CEOs. These are:

1. Using a bigger set of social tools

2. Maintaining a presence on the company website

3. Writing their own content

4. Acting spontaneously but not becoming too informal

5. Engaging a wider variety of external stakeholders

Having a social CEO can bring so many benefits to a business so long as the CEO understands what social media is and doesn’t see it as a tool to push the company’s products and services on their customer’s feeds.

Guest post Alex Gavril – part of the 123-reg blog team. The company is the UK’s largest provider of domain names and offers a range of services including web hosting.