Executives Don't Give a Damn About Social Media
Everyone's on social media aren't they? I mean it's estimated that half of the American population is on Facebook, whilst several hundred million tweets are sent every day.
One section of society is conspicuous by their absence from social media however.
A new report by Domo and CEO.com revealed that just 30% of senior executives have a single social media profile, with the vast majority having none at all.
Of those that do have an account, the majority are not in any way active. The report revealed that five of the 19 executives on Twitter have never made a single tweet.
Those that have ventured forth have been timid in their endeavors. Of the 38 executives on Facebook for instance, 25 of them have fewer than 100 friends.
All is not lost however, for the executives do seem to like one social network. The report found that they are more active on LinkedIn than the average Joe Public.
Whilst LinkedIn gets some boardroom love, Google+ is an executive ghost town. Only four senior managers are present on the network, and one of those is Larry Page himself. Pinterest scores even worse, with not a single CEO present.
Does it matter if CEOs tweet?
I argued earlier this year that yes, it does matter. Effective social media is essentially an organization wide initiative. It isn't something that's the preserve of the marketing or IT teams, it should be something that everyone does. The CEO and their executive team set the tone for the kind of culture they want. So if they're not engaging with social media, they're telling their employees that engaging with customers and other stakeholders simply isn't important.
As the report says “While the majority of Fortune 500 CEOs have yet to pick up the pace in their personal social media efforts, it seems those who do will be better equipped to successfully grow their companies,”.
Does your CEO use social media?
Follow Technorati