Why professionals are migrating back to Facebook for networking

Photo credit: AP via The Telegraph

She’s got 225,000 Facebook Likes, knows her way around a selfie stick and posts updates that are re-shared hundreds of times. No, it’s not Taylor, Katy or any of the Kardashians. The Facebook celebrity in question is Meg Whitman, the 59-year-old CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

While teens are flocking to Snapchat and Millennials wrestle with Twitter’s new character counts, business leaders are suddenly migrating to an old-school network that’s turning over a brand new leaf.

Facebook the go-to site for C-suites

LinkedIn may be the professional platform de rigueur, but Facebook is increasingly a go-to choice for execs, managers and business gurus, from T-Mobile CEO John Legere to World Bank president Jim Yong Kim. Access to the world’s biggest social audience (1.6 billion people and counting), not to mention a slew of new tools like live video, has lured the C-suite to Mark Zuckerberg’s corner office.

The return on investment? Social-savvy execs are finding ways to humanize their companies and put a face to logos. They’re connecting directly with customers and employers. And they’re building personal audiences in the thousands. While these CEO celebs might not be literally cashing in on their efforts (like those Instagram models who earn thousands of dollars per post), they are drawing new attention to their companies, while upping their own cachet.

But for every social success story is yet another drab CEO profile, blasting out corporate updates to a handful of indifferent followers. Just as in business, success on Facebook is an elusive blend of art and science, and C-level status is no guarantee of huge followings.

Executives owning it on Facebook

These five executives – a mix of familiar names and up-and-comers – have managed to crack the code to Facebook fame. Leaders testing the Facebook waters might do well to steal a page or two from their social playbooks.

Loic Le Meur, tech entrepreneur and investor

While Le Meur may not be a household name, the French-born tech pioneer and blogger has amassed more than 200,000 followers on Facebook in short order with his live, off-the-cuff videos.

Shot on his phone, often at odd hours and unusual locations, Le Meur’s videos are informal, filled with entrepreneurial insights and strangely magnetic to watch. In a recent one, he recorded himself behind the wheel of one of Tesla’s (nearly) self-driving cars.

Though it can be a little scary to see Le Meur completely ignoring the rush-hour traffic whizzing by all around him, the result is social media gold.

Takeaway: For execs, videos don’t have to be professional to be effective. If you’re willing to broadcast live on Facebook, a five-minute phone-cast can draw in significant followings with minimal prep or effort.

Brit Morin, founder of DIY site Brit + Co

Pregnancy photos, clips from Jimmy Fallon and an ode to lost bobby pins: In many ways, entrepreneur and CEO Brit Morin’s Facebook feed looks like your proverbial best friend’s… and that’s probably the reason she has 283,000 followers and counting.