學習特朗普 天天發推文

Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs chief executive, tweeted a picture of a construction site earlier this week. “In London. GS still investing in our big new Euro headquarters here. Expecting/hoping to fill it up, but so much outside our control.#Brexit.”

上週早些時候，高盛(Goldman Sachs)首席執行官勞爾德貝蘭克梵(Lloyd Blankfein)在Twitter上發佈了一張建築工地的圖片，並寫道：“在倫敦。高盛仍在這裏投資我行龐大的歐洲新總部。預期/希望滿員入駐，但有很多事情在我們控制之外。#英國退歐。”

Nothing odd about the message, you might think; it is well known that Goldman Sachs is building a new London headquarters, while also expanding in continental Europe because of Brexit. Indeed, two weeks ago Mr Blankfein tweeted: “Just left Frankfurt. Great meetings, great weather, really enjoyed it. Good, because I’ll be spending a lot more time there. #Brexit.”

你可能會想，這些話沒什麼奇怪的啊；大家都知道，高盛正在建設新的倫敦總部，同時由於英國退歐，也在歐洲大陸擴充。的確，兩週前貝蘭克梵發佈推文稱：“剛剛離開法蘭克福。很棒的會議，不錯的天氣，非常喜歡。太好了，因爲以後我會在那裏呆更多時間。#英國退歐。”

But what is startling is Mr Blankfein’s embrace of Twitter; so much so, that other executives should take note.

但令人吃驚的是貝蘭克梵接納了Twitter；以至於其他首席執行官應該留意。

After all, Goldman Sachs use to be paranoid about privacy. And Mr Blankfein was so bruised by his depiction during the financial crisis that he avoided journalists. But since June 1, when the @lloydblankfein account dispatched its first tweet — expressing support for the Paris climate deal — the account has amassed more than 67,000 followers. That is less than some tech CEOs. Google’s Sundar Pichai (who tweeted about hamburger emojis this week) has 1.3m followers. Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, has 14.2m and John Legere, T-Mobile CEO, has 4.7m.

畢竟，過去高盛對於隱私有點偏執。在全球金融危機期間，媒體對貝蘭克梵的描寫使他深受傷害，以至於他避開記者。但自6月1日貝蘭克梵的Twitter賬號(@lloydblankfein)發佈第一則推文（表達對巴黎氣候變化協定的支持）以來，這個賬號已聚集超過6.7萬粉絲。這個數字低於一些科技公司的首席執行官。谷歌(Google)的桑德爾皮查伊(Sundar Pichai)擁有130萬粉絲，他上週發佈了有關漢堡包表情符號的推文。特斯拉(Tesla)首席執行官埃隆馬斯克(Elon Musk)的粉絲數量高達1420萬，而T-Mobile首席執行官約翰萊傑爾(John Legere)擁有470萬粉絲。

But no other financial CEO is tweeting from a personal account in this punchy way; @lloydblankfein has even taken oblique, wry swipes at Donald Trump. So what explains this sudden embrace of Twitter Mr Blankfein says it was a recent decision. “I have always been messaging on things that mattered to us, but we did that before with press releases,” he told me. “I never thought I would tweet — I thought it was too dangerous.”

然而，其他金融集團首席執行官都沒有用這種言簡意賅的方式在個人賬戶上發佈推文；貝蘭克梵的賬號甚至拐彎抹角地諷刺過唐納德特朗普(Donald Trump)。那麼怎麼解釋他對Twitter的突然接納呢？貝蘭克梵表示，這是最近做出的決定。“我一直在就對我們重要的事情發表言論，但我們之前採用的途徑是向媒體發佈新聞稿，”他告訴我，“我以前從沒想過我會在Twitter上發表言論，我以爲那麼做過於危險。”

But he changed his mind after spending time in Silicon Valley, and observing Mr Trump (who has trolled Goldman Sachs).

但在硅谷呆過一段時間並注意到特朗普的做法（他曾在Twitter上找過高盛的茬）後，他改變了想法。

Mr Blankfein dislikes aspects of the administration. But he admires Mr Trump’s “genius” at communication. “The president has engaged with the public in a leveraged way and disintermediated the press — it’s been powerful,” he says. More specifically, he has absorbed three crucial lessons from Trump. The first is obvious: social media can bypass the press. This is an appealing idea for somebody such as Mr Blankfein, who — like Mr Trump — has felt bruised by journalists.

貝蘭克梵在某些方面不喜歡特朗普政府。但他讚賞特朗普的溝通“天賦”。他表示：“總統以一種借力使力的方式與公衆互動，剝奪了媒體的中介角色——這種做法的威力極大。”具體而言，他從特朗普那裏學到了3條重要經驗。第一條顯而易見：社交媒體可以繞過媒體。對於貝蘭克梵和特朗普這些覺得自己受到記者傷害的人而言，這個想法很有吸引力。

Second, disintermediation works best with punchy messages. Mr Blankfein is not using Trump-style exclamation marks or abuse. But he understands the power of being memorable. After all, as data from Edelman public relations show, trust in authority figures — and their dull press releases — has collapsed; the only real source of trust today lies in peer-to-peer communications that feel authentic and personal.

第二條經驗是，簡短有力的信息能夠最好地取代媒體。貝蘭克梵不使用特朗普式的驚歎號或謾罵。但他明白措辭讓人難忘的力量。畢竟，愛德曼(Edelman)公關的數據顯示，公衆對權威人士——及其枯燥的新聞稿——的信任已經坍塌；如今唯一能讓公衆信任的就是感覺真實和個人層面的P2P交流。

“If I had 1,000 words it would be bland, but in 140 characters your character comes through and you are forced to commit,” Mr Blankfein observes. “It’s a risky thing, but being forced to commit is good.”

“如果我有1000詞的篇幅，寫出來的內容就會平淡無奇，但如果只有140個字符，你的性格會表露出來，你被迫一句話說到點子上，”貝蘭克梵指出，“這有風險，但是被迫直截了當是一件好事。”

The third lesson from Mr Trump is that it pays to be proactive. One reason he used Twitter so effectively in the 2016 election campaign was that he had already built a massive audience. There is a lesson here for the corporate world, particularly for Wall Street banks that tried to shun the press a decade ago.

他從特朗普身上學到的第三條經驗是，積極主動是有好處的。特朗普在2016年競選期間能夠有效利用Twitter，一個原因是他已經擁有了大量受衆。這給企業界上了一課，特別是對那些10年前試圖躲避媒體的華爾街銀行而言。

“The financial crisis showed that more people should know us and who we are,” Mr Blankfein says. “I didn’t recognise the picture that was painted of me in the media then. Now people see I have a personality, that I joke.”

“金融危機表明，應該有更多人認識我們，瞭解我們是誰，”貝蘭克梵表示，“那時我認不出媒體對我的描繪。現在人們看到我也有個性，我也會說笑話。”

Or to put it another way, what Goldman Sachs is really trying to do on Twitter is get ahead of the curve, to hedge; it wants to build a communications channel before, not after, it really needs it.

或者換個說法，高盛實際上試圖在Twitter上佔得先機，進行對衝；它希望在真正需要的時候之前（而不是之後）打造溝通渠道。

Now I dare say that many other CEOs might consider this too high-risk a strategy. Executives such as Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp, or Marc Andreessen, the venture capitalist, have danced with social media before being burnt and pulling back. Maybe that will happen to Mr Blankfein, too.

我敢說，其他很多CEO可能認爲這種策略風險過高。新聞集團(News Corp)董事長魯珀特默多克(Rupert Murdoch)或風險投資家馬克安德烈森(Marc Andreessen)等高管也曾試水社交媒體，但在引火上身後撤退。或許這也可能發生在貝蘭克梵身上。

Yet I, for one, hope that @lloydblankfein keeps tweeting. And that more publicity-shy CEOs copy him. Yes, it is risky to be punchy, personal and provocative, particularly when talking about presidential policies. But for better or worse, Mr Trump has changed the communications game. In a world where CEOs can be trolled by a president, the defence might lie in taking a leaf from Mr Trump’s book. Or as Mr Blankfein might tweet: “Can’t turn back the clock/new era now. If you cant beat ’em, join ’em — by learning to post. Press releases don’t work. #eatorgeteaten”.

不過，至少我本人希望@lloydblankfein賬號可以繼續發推文，並且有更多不願拋頭露面的CEO效仿他。沒錯，發表簡短有力、帶有個人和挑釁色彩的評論是非常冒險的行爲，特別是在討論總統政策的時候。在總統可能在網上對CEO找茬的當今世界，防守可能也意味着要學學特朗普。或者正如貝蘭克梵可能在Twitter上所寫的：“現在無法逆轉時鐘/新時代。如果你無法打敗他們，那就加入他們的行列，學會發帖。新聞稿沒用。#弱肉強食。”