According to a study by the McKinsey Global Institute, “knowledge workers” whose job function relies heavily on communication and research can increase their productivity by over 25 percent through the increased use of collaborative tools.
Tom Hood, executive director and CEO of the Maryland Association of CPAs (MACPA), says global leadership teams, managers and direct reports, and professionals in many different functions can use social media tools to enhance collaboration and their professional relationships. By interacting through social networks, financial executives can gain a higher level of engagement with employees, customers, suppliers and other business contacts.
“The biggest issues we hear from our financial executives,” says Hood, whose Maryland Association of CPAs is frequently recognized as a leading innovator, “are the need to (1) keep up, and (2) be proactive vs. reactive.”
Hood, widely recognized as a leading innovator and expert in the use of social tools in the finance community, is the featured speaker for the Digital Innovation Lab on Social Media Tools on Tuesday, June 3, 2014 at FEI’s Summit Leadership Conference.
In his FEI Summit session, Hood will discuss how social tools can assist senior financial executives in meeting their professional challenges to locate, share, and engage in conversations on current information and developments, and how to use social tools to enhance your personal and team performance.
Social media is now used as a leading relationship building tool, says Hood, allowing executives to be connected to various parts of the business. Social media platforms enable collaboration more than ever before, leading to enhanced product or proposal development and the synergy of bringing people together from the get-go during development of the project or idea.
Among the top social tools for learning and researching, says Hood, “The big ones are LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.”
Using Social Networks … and Getting Work Done!
Hood says his session’s goals are three-fold: “First, to provide evidence of why social tools are helpful in business, second, to clear up some of the misperceptions, and third, to cover how you can manage the risks.
“One thing financial executives should be paying attention to,” adds Hood, “is the SEC’s new guidance about the use of social technologies (including Twitter and other platforms) in investor relations. CFOs need to get ahead of this.”
The fact that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission addressed the growing use of social tools for public disclosure, and recognized certain inherent limitations on such platforms requiring use of hyperlinks for additional data, provides evidence of how ‘mainstream’ social media has become.
In Social Media, How Do You Spell Return? ROI or ROA?
CFOs naturally look for the return on investment in any initiative, with social media being no different. Or is it? In fact, it can be close to impossible to correlate a dollar-for-dollar increase in revenue with direct growth in social media spending. However, that doesn’t mean the return isn’t there – it just means the return may need to be measured using another metric that may have an indirect correlation with ROI.
“What is the ROI on higher engagement with employees and customers and potential customers, or ROA – return on attention?” asks Hood. “One of my best counterarguments to those looking to use a narrow definition of ROI, is that in today’s rapidly changing and complex world, getting people’s attention maybe be the most valuable tool you have, to cut through the clutter.
“For example, if I am a CFO, and I’m scanning a lot of the news going on with things in our company, this can be internal vs. external. I understand the risks of talking about business strategy in an open forum, but if you have an internal blog, and you find articles and blog posts from other groups that reinforce why you are restructuring, and your people could access that through your intranet, you would have more of a sense of purpose. Especially the younger generation -- in fact, everyone connects to a sense of purpose.”
Hood will share stories of social media use by companies in his Summit presentation, as well as highlights of major industry studies including the aforementioned McKinsey Global Institute report and research by MIT and Sloane.
“The idea of social media as a communication and engagement tool, for learning and research, and staying on top of things, these are often overlooked benefits of social media for finance and accounting professionals. Everything around ‘social’ is starting to permeate...it’s about listening and connecting.”
Register now for FEI’s Summit Leadership Conference to meet Tom Hood in person, and benefit from his full presentation on social tools.