Luncheon Keynote - New Media Disruption
IRC Domain 3: Corporate Messaging Development and Domain 4: Marketing and Outreach
Summary by Maryellen Thielen
Speaker: Betty Liu, Executive Vice Chairman, NYSE; Founder and CEO, Radiate
Moderator: Jon Harris, Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer, Conagra Brands
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
In July, Betty Liu joined the New York Stock Exchange as executive vice chairman and a member of the NYSE Group board as part of parent company Intercontinental Exchange Inc.’s acquisition of Radiate. However, audience members were most familiar with Liu as a 10-year veteran of Bloomberg TV. In her roles at Radiate and Bloomberg, Liu has conducted hundreds of interviews with chief executive officers around the globe.
- “If you don’t tell your story, others will tell it for you,” should be top-of-mind when communicating with, and through, traditional and social media. Liu said people tend to fill silence with negative thoughts, which you then have to address when you get around to talking with the public again.
- Liu considers it especially important to be direct and authentic in your messages because “the public is getting smarter and more critical, cynical and discerning.” Preparation is a prerequisite for successful interviews. She advises having the CEO say it in his or her own words before providing advice on how to craft and polish the story further – then have the CEO practice an interview on camera beforehand, including responses to possible “renegade questions.”
- Which CEOs are the most credible and effective in using traditional and social media to effectively tell their companies’ stories? Liu mentioned John Legere of T-Mobile – “he is a natural-born marketer who has been brilliant in using social media to help transform an also-ran to a premier brand” – as well as Mary Barra of General Motors and Satya Nadella of Microsoft. “Their thought leadership has contributed to the success of their brands.”
- While Lui cited Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase as a CEO with a great personal brand, she added, “Each one of you has a personal brand, and each one of you should be a thought leader. Ask 10 people to describe you in three to four words. You’ll find they use many of the same words to describe you. That’s your personal brand.”
- The day before the IR Workshop, the SEC charged Elon Musk with securities fraud for a series of alleged “false and misleading” tweets about a potential transaction to take Tesla private. (The parties subsequently settled the fraud charges.) In response to an audience question, Liu characterized Musk as “very unfiltered. He gives great interviews because he answers questions directly rather than trying to figure out how to bridge to something else. What’s interesting was his reaction when I told him, ‘It seems that you have no fear!’ He said he has more fears than anyone, and that every day, he lives with the fear of regret that he hasn’t done something to achieve his full potential.”
- The business and news media landscape has changed dramatically since Liu began her media career just before the dot-com crash. The lines are blurring between print, online and video – and news aggregators and bloggers are increasingly accepted as news channels. (Liu reads Axios, the Kevin Sheekey Daily Read and the Skimm every day, in addition to traditional media news.) She pointed out that many people get their news on Twitter and the benefits of Instagram for consumer-facing companies – “but Facebook is for my 82-year-old father.”