5 Ways to Maximize Your CEO’s Brand Impact
A CEO can influence how the media, stakeholders, and consumers perceive not only their leadership but also the brand they represent. However, recent trends show that while CEOs may be building strong personal brands, they aren’t always translating that success into a positive impact for their companies.
Understanding how to maximize your CEO’s brand impact is key to elevating both their personal standing and the reputation of the organization they lead. Let’s explore how communicators can help their CEO become an asset to their brand.
The CEO Brand Gap: Perception vs. Impact
PublicRelay tracks CEO performance through our CEO Index, which rates CEOs from -10 to +10 on two essential factors:
- Perception: How well the CEO is perceived by the media. This includes the sentiment, reach, and sharing of their personal media mentions.
- Impact: How the CEO’s presence influences their company’s media reputation. This measures the sentiment, reach, and sharing of mentions where both the CEO and company are featured.
What we’ve noticed over the past two years is an interesting trend: while Perception Scores have generally increased, Impact Scores have stagnated. This means that while CEOs may be perceived more positively as individuals, they are becoming less effective at enhancing their company’s reputation.
For communications professionals, this gap is an opportunity to recalibrate. If your CEO’s personal brand is thriving, but your company isn’t seeing a parallel boost in reputation, it’s time to rethink your communication strategy.
Best Practices to Boost Brand Impact
Here are several actionable strategies to align your CEO’s personal perception with their company’s reputation, ensuring their brand impact is as strong as it should be:
1. Prioritize Company Over Self-Promotion
While building a CEO’s personal brand is important, it should never overshadow the company’s goals. Self-Promoter CEOs, those who focus too heavily on their own narratives, risk becoming disconnected from their organization. Instead, CEOs should weave company successes, values, and innovations into their personal communications. Whether it’s through interviews, social media posts, or speaking engagements, their personal brand should amplify the company’s brand story.
For example, CEOs who leverage media opportunities to highlight company initiatives and industry leadership—not just personal milestones—tend to have higher Impact Scores.
2. Align Thought Leadership with Brand Strategy
A CEO’s thought leadership can be a powerful tool to enhance the company’s reputation. However, it must be strategic. CEOs who speak on broader industry trends, corporate responsibility, or emerging technologies often boost both their Perception and Impact Scores. This is because they position themselves as experts not just on their own company but on the wider business landscape.
Encourage your CEO to engage in thought leadership that aligns with your company’s mission and values. Thoughtful commentary on relevant industry issues can help solidify both their authority and the company’s reputation, driving positive media coverage.
3. Stay Clear of Controversial Coverage
Negative media coverage can be difficult to avoid, but strategic communications can help shield your CEO from scandals that can harm both their personal and company brand. One way to manage this is by doing your best to ensure your CEO doesn’t become a scapegoat. Distance them from high-risk issues and focus on positive storytelling.
Incorporating crisis communication strategies into your CEO’s media interactions can protect their Perception while mitigating damage to your company’s Impact. For example, if a major controversy arises, quick, transparent communication that addresses the issue and highlights the company’s corrective measures can help salvage brand reputation.
4. Leverage Key Media Opportunities
Earnings calls, industry conferences, and interviews are prime opportunities for CEOs to bolster their brand impact. By participating in these high-visibility moments, CEOs can directly influence how their company is perceived. In fact, CEOs who personally engage in earnings discussions often drive positive media sentiment for their companies, as it shows hands-on leadership and transparency. See Google’s Sundar Pichai, for example, who drove positive coverage on the company’s growth after their earnings call in July.
Maximizing media moments means ensuring your CEO’s presence in coverage is both visible and favorable. Position your CEO in the right narratives—those that focus on growth, innovation, and strategic vision.
5. Be Mindful of Social Media Perception
Social media can be a double-edged sword for CEOs. While it offers a direct line to the public, it also opens the door to immediate scrutiny. CEOs with large social media followings may generate significant positive engagement, but they are equally vulnerable to backlash, especially if their posts are seen as self-serving or out of touch with current events. A quick look at Elon Musk can give a deep understanding of how that can go.
Communicators should do what they can to help their CEO craft a social media presence that reinforces the brand’s values. Their messaging should resonate with your company’s mission and connect with stakeholders in meaningful ways, avoiding the pitfalls of excessive self-promotion.
Maximizing Your CEO’s Brand Impact
Ultimately, the most successful CEOs are those who understand that their brand is an extension of their company’s identity. By balancing personal perception with corporate impact, they can drive meaningful change for their organization, not just for themselves.
For PR and Communications executives, the challenge is to guide your CEO’s messaging and media presence in a way that reflects positively on both their leadership and the business.
To effectively do so, you need comprehensive insights into how both the CEO and the company are perceived in the media. PublicRelay offers precise, human-verified insights into sentiment, reach, and sharing, ensuring you have a clear picture of how your CEO’s media presence is influencing your company’s reputation. We also track and measure the impact of your CEO’s mentions, allowing you to tailor communication strategies that elevate both personal and corporate brands.
Contact us to learn more about how PublicRelay can help you maximize your CEO’s brand impact and strengthen your company’s reputation.
