We asked the wonderful sponsors of the 2019 Social CEOs awards to share their wisdom on digital leadership. In our second post,Vinay Nair, CEO and Co-Founder of Lightful, answers our three burning questions.
What one thing do you think every charity leader should know about social media?
Get involved! Whether it’s on LinkedIn with interesting people you are meeting or profile-raising you can do for your charity, or on Twitter to engage on topics that matter to you (and your charity), you should try to get involved. There is a real need for leaders in our sector to amplify the good of what their charities are doing, and help these positive messages to reach more and more people. There are a lot of great people to learn from, tools to help, and colleagues who will love to show you around, so get involved and let the work teach you.
Please give us one insight, observation or thought you have about digital leadership
I’d land on “experience” as the key word. Think about what experience you want to give to your stakeholders (beneficiaries, donors, staff, trustees, volunteers) when they engage with your charity. And then think through how digital could play a role to make these experiences wonderful and delightful. This can help to inform priorities, how you see digital cutting across the work that you do, and help you provide the leadership (the digital leadership) on how to make this happen.
What one prediction would you make about the future of the sector
People are craving authenticity and purpose and seeing who they can trust. I am an optimist and I believe in the sector; I believe we must (and will) step into this to help bridge these gaps, and tackle fundamental issues of poverty, inequality and environmental impact in an even more profound way than we have done to date. If we think back to the ‘experiences’ we want our stakeholders to have, digital can help create these more personalise relationships at scale. We can do it… I told you I’m an optimist!