All posts by Lisa Clavering

I was lucky enough to grab a few minutes of Kate’s time recently to chat about all things social, winning the coveted Best Social CEO trophy last year, and being your authentic self. Grab a cuppa and enjoy.

Congratulations on your Social CEOs victory last year! You looked delighted on the night. What did winning Best Social CEO mean to you?

Thank you! I was thrilled – and really surprised – which I think was indicated by my garbled speech where I just said how chuffed I was and how proud my mum would be (she was!).  Quite simply it hadn’t occurred to me that I would win, I’ve followed the awards since they started – and used ‘The List’ as my ‘people to follow and learn from who clearly get social’. 

So to not only make ‘The List’ but to win felt very leftfield, especially in my first year as a Chief Executive when I felt I was finding my feet Chief Exec-ing. To get such positive feedback in an unprompted way from people who’d found value in something I was doing instinctively – my tweets are very much me – was a lovely thing. 

I have to say though that I got total tweet-fear about my first tweet after winning…suddenly it felt like pressure…until I just got on with thanking people for their lovely nominations and messages of congrats!

Why do you think you were nominated?

Having read the write up it seemed to be that people liked how I was sharing my enthusiasm and passion for not only the work of Teenage Cancer Trust but for the sector more broadly, especially the children & young people’s cancer charity sector where historically things haven’t been as collaborative as they are now. 

My approach is that there should be no difference between the Twitter-me (which is the channel I use, I’m not yet an Insta-adopter and am not a lover of LinkedIn… yuck!) and the in-person-me.  I’m wholehearted & energetic, I like people, I’m proud of my team, Teenage Cancer Trust supporters amaze me, the young people we support need us to do so much more and my family rock my world (and don’t take me too seriously) and that’s the stuff that inspires me to say things – whether in 280 characters or in person – and that seemed to be what people mentioned in their nominations.

You are judging this year – what will you be looking for in the nominations to help you make your decisions?

Well I am glad I am not the only judge as I think it will be tough to decide this year – I see a lot of people using social in a really smart and engaging way now.

Personally a big stand out for me will be people who are using social as a listening tool. Tuning in to the views of others as well as championing their views/voice. There are some bold leaders out there, using social to speak truth to power as well as share positivity and I am looking forward to learning from the nominations – what a luxury to get to see them all!  

I do suspect that some teams in bigger organisations get really organised now, trying to get their boss listed with lots of coordinated nominations so I won’t be looking for volume of nominations – for me it will be about content.  If one person has one nomination for doing something really engaging, really authentic and totally grounded in purpose and pushing boundaries then that is worth way more than a high volume of nominations where an organisation with the resources to have a comms team has got organised. 

Can you remember when and why you joined Twitter?

I can – and it was because I had to rather than because I was an early adopter!  The work of Teenage Cancer Trust – and more importantly the needs of young people with cancer – had been put into the national spotlight because of the phenomenal fundraising efforts of Stephen Sutton through his campaign ‘Stephen’s Story’ which inspired a huge wave of donations for our work back in 2014.  

Once the peak of Stephen’s Story had passed and we moved into sharing where the funds would help our work we became aware that there were some accounts on Twitter that seemed to be purporting to be me and were randomly sharing bits of erroneous information about cancer in young people and the charity.  Those accounts don’t exist now but they were the prompt for me to realise that you need to own your space, even if it doesn’t feel the most natural when you start. I simply decided I’d sign up and start to learn – and I haven’t looked back, it rapidly became a core element of how I lead and, most importantly, listen and learn.

What does being on social media add to your life – professionally and personally?

It does what it says on the tin – it’s a network.  It adds depth, connection and insight – and saves me time tussling with things when there will be generous, experienced people out there already sharing their knowledge and perspective but most importantly I try to use it to keep me connected to voices I don’t typically hear in other ways on a daily basis, whether that is our frontline teams in the NHS, young people, their parents or our supporters – the value is immense. 

On a personal note it never fails to top up my motivation and creativity when I see individuals and organisations doing such impactful work and sharing it every day… I do also love a dog video so those make me chuckle too!

Do you ever take a digital detox? (I have tried but usually fail miserably!)

I think the key is balance – Twitter can feel like you ‘have’ to be on it all the time but I tweet when the rhythm of my day gives me the space to do it.  I do check it at weekends and in the evenings because those are times when some of the people I need to connect with and listen to are likely to be active but it’s also important to remember that people really won’t notice if you take a break for a bit!  I always delete Twitter from my personal phone when I go on holiday with my family but that’s as far as I’ve got with switching off or detoxing….

Who are your must-follow accounts on Twitter?

There’s too many to pick just one – especially as it depends what it is you need to use Twitter to tune in to and listen to. I’d say start with the Top 25/Top 30 lists from previous Social CEO Awards and follow those – as well as the winners in all the categories – they are all doing things in the way that works for them. 

The approaches differ across people’s personalities and areas of work so some will resonate with you and some won’t – that’s fine.  Listen and tune in – retweet things you like or that have made you think (ideally say why!) and just get going… you’ll find your voice and how it works for you the more you do.

What would your advice be to any charity leader considering making the leap onto social media for the first time?

If someone told you there was a place you could go – for free – where you could become better connected to the voices you need to hear in real-time as well as able to learn from and deepen your network AND be a brilliant advocate for the work of your organisation then I bet you’d go there… that’s what social media can do so my advice would be just join in, listen, find your voice and crack on!

Nominations for the 2019 awards are open until midnight on 27th September so get nominating your social and digital superstars now!

In part 1 of this blog post we told you about how we expanded the social categories to be much broader than just CEOs. 

On top of this we recognised the correlation between social and digital leadership – whilst they are emphatically not the same thing, there is a positive relationship between the two – and we also knew that improving the digital landscape within the charity sector would be fundamental to the continued success of organisations operating in the space. So in 2017 we began adding digital categories to the roster of awards too.

Read on to see what was so great about last year’s digital winners – and tell us about your 2019 nominees!

In the digital awards we’d love to have nominations from charity leaders who are blazing a trail in an any area of digital. For example: they could have led a digital transformation project, or helped their organisation increase its digital fundraising, or been a trustee who helped champion digital, getting the rest of their board and the charity to use it more effectively. They’ll have had a clear vision for how their charity could progress in digital and led the way to make it happen. We would be interested to hear about any stats and examples which illustrate this. If possible, we would also be interested to hear where charities may have followed best practice (e.g. frameworks, guidelines, or other resources) although this is not essential. Ideally nominees in the digital categories will have good social media presences as well, but it’s not required as with the social media categories.

Best Digital Trustee

Helen Stokes-Lampard

“Helen is an enthusiastic supporter of new ideas, innovation, new learning and discovery of new ways to do things better to improve our services for our membership and the profession in general. She is the leading figure and at the forefront of the College’s digital transformation programme, playing a central role in helping the College use technology to its full potential for the benefit of our membership and the profession worldwide.”

Nominate a digital trustee today

Best Digital Leader

Julie Dodd

“thenewreality.info [the study that she wrote in 2015] was groundbreaking and still stands as a reference point when trying to explain the difference between digital transformation as core to service delivery and digital as just a channel or set of tools.”

Nominate a digital leader 

Best Digital Champion

Liz Green

“Great at bringing together a range of partners on projects, always being enthusiastic, finding examples of best practice from across Scotland and showcasing them and keen to use new types of technology in her own work. She’s also been working with other colleagues on improving staff knowledge on a range of digital tools like Basecamp and on cyber security internally. [She] is an advocate for STEM in Scotland, as well as being involved in the 5Rights programme in Scotland. She sits on a range of groups to help progress digital in youth work.“

In the ‘best digital champion’ category, we are looking for people in any role who not only champion digital within their organisation but across the broader sector too. Nominate a digital champion 

Best Digital CEO

This category was not awarded in 2018 – but check out our 2017 Winner Steve Ford’s twitter account. We want to hear about CEOs who are really driving the digital agenda within their organisation – championing change, and encouraging an environment of digital growth and development. Nominate a Digital CEO for this year’s awards.

When the Social CEO Awards were started, way back in 2013, we wanted to recognise the strengths that having a social CEO brought to a charity – and celebrate those who were doing it well. But over the years the awards have evolved. We recognised that influence can come from everywhere, and good practice radiates in all direction. Social media has made the world more open, and everyone more connected, and so in 2015 we broadened the categories to recognise how valuable a strong social presence can be at any level. We now have 4 categories of social awards.

We kept the name “Social CEOs”, because “Social CEOs (and other people)” didn’t have the same ring to it.

So while we might be best known for the initial award that gave us our moniker, the other categories are equally as important to us – and we can only award if you bring brilliant people to our attention.

Not sure what sort of thing might qualify someone for a category? No problem: read on for snippets of the winning 2018 social nominations and check out the winners’ accounts for inspiration! And look out for our upcoming part 2 where we’ll tell you all about the digital categories.

For the social media awards we’re looking for people who have a great social media presence. They use social platforms to drive change; to move the conversation on; to amplify the voice of their cause.

Best Trustee on Social Media

Helen Stokes-Lampard

“Helen’s online presence across all social media channels continues to grow in size and scope which makes her one of the notable social influencers in health care. She continues to establish thought leadership through generating debates and discussions, sharing ideas, experiences, expertise and a lot more on health care and policies through the RCGP’s twitter and her weekly online blog which goes out to over 52,000 GP members.”

Nominate someone for best trustee on social media.

Best Rising Star on Social Media

Nikki Bell

“Her social media approach has changed how we approach digital community fundraising at the BHF and she’s progressed rapidly within the sector by using social media as a strong relationship building tool, connecting and engaging with supporters, BHF staff and sector colleagues.”

As a guide, we generally expect nominees to be around manager level. Nominate your rising star.

Best Leader on Social Media

Caroline Price

“Engaging with followers she harnesses social media audience to co-create and develop our services and training incorporating their views and ideas. Caroline has introduced social media for the services team at Beat as a way of beneficiaries engaging with the services team directly and seeking support through a direct messaging on Twitter & Instagram. This innovation has lead to more young people (under 25’s) accessing our services.”

For the “leader” categories nominees should be around Director / Head Of level. Nominate for this category.

Part 2 – which looks at the digital categories – is coming soon!

We love reading the nominations for #SocialCEOs every year. Zoe recently wrote a great article with tips from past winners – but in this post we’d like to share some quotes from last year’s nominations, to show you what past nominators had to say about their chosen social superstars.

Authenticity is crucial

So many of the nominations highlighted the blending of personal and professional as a big positive, and we completely agree that to have a really successful presence on social media, it’s important to show a bit of yourself. Here are some examples:

“He mixes his personal views with his professional life in a way that strikes a great balance.”

“Because he’s tweeting from the heart he has far more impact on the issues that are close to the charity. His tweets can be both amusing and deeply sad.”

“She is also smart and funny and blends personal tweets – about running, for example, in with the rest. She’s not afraid to use her own voice.”

“She helps present a very human face of the charity.”

“When you look at her profile, you know there’s been zero input from a social media strategist.”

Demystify your role

Twitter, used well, can be a great way to demonstrate more about what a CEO actually does all day. We all know they are busy and important people, but if asked to describe what they do, how many of us could do a reasonable job? Thanks to Twitter, we can see this much more clearly, and our nominators think this is a real benefit.

“Brings to life her day-to-day role.”

“Following her on social media gives a real insight into the varied role of a CEO.”

“She shows her human side, displays leadership, and provides a fascinating insight into the life of a charity Chief Exec.”

Be brave

Social media can be a minefield; many people are lurking just waiting to take offence or twist what someone says. So even having a presence and putting themselves on the map can be a brave decision. We saw bravery highlighted in quite a few of last year’s nominations:

“(He) uses social media to ask difficult questions.”

“(She) is not afraid to be brave and bold. She will share her opinion, challenge others and put herself out there.”

“He displays leadership in our field by not being shy of issues which can be tough to deal with.”

Let digital shape your work and culture

Our nominees were praised for how their overall approach to social and digital represent the broader ways they work, and how they bring digital into the day-to-day.

“(She) is a champion for empowering colleagues, other CEOs and leaders in the public and third sector to embrace social media to become closer to the people they serve.”

“(She) has worked hard to build genuine, long-term relationships with a broad range of people through daily interactions. She uses these conversations to inform the work of the charity.”

“(She) is a staunch champion of social media as an effective dissemination tool for our work.”

“Her enthusiasm, passion and commitment to (the organisation’s) mission is infectious.”

“Since (she) started, the culture has changed. Everything we planned or wanted to do has now been sped up.”

“She sees social not as an add on to work but an important space to engage and exist as a leader in the third sector.”

“(He) is incredibly enthusiastic about the power of social media and digital, at both an organisational level and more broadly in terms of the influence it’s having on society.”

And finally…

Here are a few of the random bits that made us smile:

“I’m not quite sure how (he) has the time to juggle a demanding job, a young family, an unruly dog, a football habit as well as his constant Twitter feed but he does it. We can only imagine that he tweets in his sleep.”

“All in all she’s a wonderful person that embodies what it means to be a social leader inside and outside the limit of 140* characters. *She’ll be pimp at 280 as well” (This was just ahead of this crucial change to Twitter character limits!)

“He really should change his Twitter handle. It’s weird.”

“(His) tweets may also contain dogs”

And very lastly – in the “anything else you’d like to tell us” box, we had this lovely polite closing remark: “Thank you.”

Nominations are open until 28th September for this year’s #SocialCEOs – so tell us today who you think deserves recognition!