It’s ‘official’; big shot CEOs are social media slackers. The hot news comes straight from ÃœBERCEO, who says it conducted research on the topic for the past few weeks and has found that there’s little chance you’ll ever get to exchange pokes and tweets with Fortune 100 CEOs for the time being. Here’s the ‘miserable level of engagement’ ÃœBERCEO has uncovered:
- Only two CEOs have Twitter accounts.
- 13 CEOs have LinkedIn profiles, and of those only three have more than 10 connections.
- 81% of CEOs don’t have a personal Facebook page.
- Three quarters of the CEOs have some kind of Wikipedia entry, but nearly a third of those have limited or outdated information.
- Not one Fortune 100 CEO has a blog.
Quite frankly, I think this is actually a good thing. Top execs of Fortune 100 companies in my view can do much more harm to themselves and the organizations they represent using social media the wrong way, and I haven’t seen that many CEOs of any size and type of company do it the right way. It’s what social media gurus and other experts are there for!
Thank God, I’ve never had to work for a Fortune 100 company, but if ever do I’ll be damned if I’m going to befriend and send Zombie bites to the head honcho on Facebook or send him or her direct messages over Twitter if I’m looking for a raise.
Hi Robin,
Thanks for the data. But I don’t think that all CEOs are evil. Some of them may be capable of using social media effectively both for their company and the consumers.
Mani Raj
Havoc Marketing
still, the concept of eating your own dog food applies.
What do you want them to Tweet?
“theAIG boss: The company just made a loss of $20billion, therefore my bonus for this year is only $100 millon
”
ha superb..
(made me laugh)
Fortune 100 CEO’s probably have much better things to do than to talk about nonsense on Twitter, or join a shitty network like Facebook.
Did twitter steal your girlfriend? Its a tool used to exchange information between a company and their customers. I guess ceos have better things to do than find out what their customers needs are.
maybe if CEO’s *used* social media, maybe it would help them understand/incorporate it?
Apparently all the CxO and Board members interested in social networking hang out on http://www.boardex.com/
Robing, any chance you can expand a little further on “It’s what social media gurus and other experts are there for!”?
It just seems to me that Twitter is a breeding ground for counterfeit “experts” in social media, so I am interested in who you are talking about.
Thanks — (If you respond, if not BOO)
Considering that a huge percentage of users are lurkers according to other studies.
Why would one identify usage of social media by only the number of posts a person makes?
Apple for e.g is a company that uses blogs, feedback from the internet to their advantage a lot more than other companies without blogs, tweets, etc except for the rare ones that come out of Job’s keyboard. I can think of a ton of other companies that do the same.
Posting in a blog does not make you elite
CEO s aren’t CEO s for ever. They will be replaced by their predecessors, who may use social media. The usage will increase over time.
They’re old.
That should be your headline: Top CEOs are old guys who don’t use the internet. This is not because it isn’t useful, its because they don’t really understand it, or quickly become frustrated when learning to use it because they are old guys.
I bet if you asked about email there are more than a few that leave email completely up to their secretaries/assistants. Which seems pretty ridiculous to me.
More likely they don’t use the internet because they are too busy getting shit done.
Your concept of a top CEO is ridiculous. You obviously have no idea what these guys and girls actually do.
Also, FTA:
“Thank God, I’ve never had to work for a Fortune 100 company”
Careful, now you’re projecting.
They spelled Exxon Mobil wrong in their stack.
ÃœBERCEO leave spell checking to the plebes.
I agree with Havoc, not all CEOs are evil. I believe they need a little encouragement and an overview of how to use social media services and blogs for business before they engage. They want to know the ROI before starting.
There’s apprehensive because the major cost is : TIME – which most of them don’t have.
thanks for the information. It is such a tragedy that so few CEO’S are on twitter, because if they actually did join, they would find so much… this would include:-
1 – they would get a medal just for turning up and having a go
2 – they would have a way to connect with their customers and get feedback
3 – they would have a way to listen to what people are saying about their brand and perhaps about them, and get a chance to address it
4 – They would get a chance to show people what they were like, that they were not just a corporate robot, but that they had a family, had outside activities etc..
All CEO’S could and would learn so much from having a go with Twitter, yes they may get it wrong, but they should be applauded for even having a go…
The stats are mildly interesting but conclusions a bit glib.
The nature of social media is casual communication “on the fly”, however, the voice of a company’s CEO on any topic related to the company is viewed as “authority” by analysts and media. This creates choppy waters. The best platform for fiduciary communication is not a 140-character tweet when millions or billions of dollars in company value is at daily stake from an errant word or unintentional aside that carries with it the potential to deposition that value.
The result of this conundrum is that CEO’s would assign updates of their Twitter, Facebook, etc. accounts to corporate IR or PR staff which ultimately defies the argument made for CEO’s having these accounts in the first place.
“Company” (vs. CEO) social media accounts are a different story, of course.
Do you have any data on the average age of the CEOs surveyed?
I’m not sure that using social media is the best use of a Fortune 100 CEO’s time. In the same way we don’t expect them to write press releases or answer common customer service calls, they need to save their time to communicate with the people who make a difference in their world. For them, social media isn’t that forum.
If you don’t get it and have no interest, don’t use it. Really is that simple. I don’t want to see people using Twitter and other social media outlets simply because someone told them they should. You either have a passion for it and get the relevance or you don’t.
However, that does not preclude CEO’s – not all CEO’s are social luddites and socially inept!! They can have personalities you know:)
Just take Tony Hsieh of Zappos – a man who gets social and as a result so does his company. Other brand leaders demonstrate this too, Innocent Drinks is a good example.
ROFL
“social media gurus and other experts…” – Yeah!
Oh! Boy!
Top 100 CEOs have better things to do than tell people what they had for lunch or play mafia wars.
Seriously guys, this is all the “news” you can muster?
This is no surprise – at all. I have worked at two Fortune 100 companies – CEO’s have a lot better things to do than tweet/add friends. They are so insanely busy, their corporate messages are so controlled for branding, PR, SEC reg’s and on and on, & they would be literally bombarded with requests from people asking for jobs or whatnot. They barely have enough time for their own lives let alone social networking.
Never going to happen. If it does, I’ll bet you any amount of money it’s their marketing dept.
Agree with Antje. Having worked with at least 7-8 F100 companies over the years, I have a good sense of how busy their senior execs are. These people are running huge, global, extremely complex companies. To be successful, CEOs have to rely on others for even the most critical & strategic functions such as managing customers, financials, employees etc. So it isn’t at all surprising that they rely on other to manage social media.
Robin has correctly identified some of the compliance & reputation risks arising from social media, but the “focus” and “bandwidth” reasons are even stronger.
I think a much more interesting report would be on how the Fortune 100 companies use social media tools. CEOs shouldn’t be trying to create a brand that trumps that of their company. If it happens naturally as in the case of Steve Jobs than that may possibly be advantageous, but if top CEOs really tried to be their own brand I think that could harm the company’s image. What company wants their public image to be an older rich man who is on a completely different level than their average customer?
While participation of Fortune 500 CEOs on Twitter may be limited, many executives both inside and outside of the Fortune 500 are starting to use Twitter:
http://www.bigw...twitter-leaders
You hit the nail on the head @BradJashinsky – apart from having incredibly full days, the CEOs of companies aren’t the brands. Would it even make sense for Steve Jobs to get 500 tweets about how angry people are about the upgrade price for a GS? Or Ballmer to get a note about how Word crashed yesterday while someone was working on their term paper?
I know the social media people say “YES, absolutely!” but they don’t understand what it’s like to have a company that addresses millions of people.
I would like to see Techcrunch get George Colony (CEO of Forrester) to comment on this topic here. He came and spoke at a conference about the 8 things he tells ceo’s about technology & social media. I think he gets it. Forrester may not quite be Fortune 100, but it is certainly a respectable and historic organization. He said that the ceo’s he talks to say: “I don’t use this stuff…I don’t see why I should change my company around it.” And his response is basically: “That’s true — you don’t care to use it, and I get that. No big deal. But your customers use it. And your customers will change your company.” The tipping point being when the gen Y’s graduate from college in the next couple of years and go into the general workforce (b/c gen Xers don’t use social media NEARLY as much as gen Y).
Check out this post by Colony:
http://blogs.fo...essions-of.html
I’m not employed by Forrester — I just like his comments. Sorry if I sound a little ‘fanboy’ about his stuff.
These statistics are biased. Given that most Fortune 100 CEOs are in an older age brackets who statistically use social media networks less and less, the above data can be expected. To be useful, it needs to be benchmarked against the average for that age group.
While I understand that CEOs are insanely busy and social media can often be interpreted the wrong way, do the CEOs really know the extent that social media can change their businesses. I mean if you don’t use social media yourself are you even apt to try it in your business. In my opinion, social media usage is embarrassing for the Fortune 100. Eventually the Fortune 100 will listen as small and medium-sized businesses figure out social media and start stealing the Fortune 100’s customers.
I forgot where I saw this, but I agreed.
That’s because social media is largely for the proletariat.
The rest can blissfully unplug.
It is a bit surprising to see the numbers so low. I agree that CEOs may not be the best people to represent the company or even themselves, but I would’ve thought that they’d have social media gurus (taking a lot of slack for that statement eh?) maintaining their social media presence for them with their own minimal contribution (ie. faking it)…
This data seems very flawed. I can think of four CEOs off the top of my head who have twitter accounts. Maybe they only surveyed the CEOs of the top 100 companies? The methodology is nowhere to be found. Reads like another online urban legend. If 29% of CEOs have facebook pages, how does that compare with the rest of the world? Seems geared to trigger outrage, but I find myself only irritated, mostly at UberCEO.
not to sound snarky, but fortune100 means the top 100 largest companies (not sure if US only or worldwide in which language would be a separate issue) …. not the CEO of zappos or a start-up….
If this is the case, it can be because CEO’s do not want to be annoyed by start-ups looking for funding.
To be honest, I would really like these very people to blog and use twitter. Somehow, it’s not quite entertaining and educational to have one’s marketing initiative done through unnecessary tweets.
I’d be pissed if I was a stockholder in a company where the CEO was spending hours twittering about the color of the dump he took in the toilet that morning.
@Hondo
You’re kidding right?
I am not surprised by this information, formerly working for a PR agency I found that many heads of the companies I represented did not engage personally on social media. They either did not see the importance in being involved on social media or did not get it and in either case would not have been a good representation of the company through social media (without some previous instruction and overviews of how to engage and participate well.
I think the most important thing is that these CEO’s recognize the importance for their company to be actively involved in social media outreach and making a voice among those who engage in it.
They actually have something to do with their time. Being as ridiculously highly paid as most top CEOs are, I’d hate to think they were spending even 5 min per day using facebook or twitter. I really don’t think someone in that position needs a “LinkedIn” profile to network, do you?
if the big bad ceo’s had any social media (twitter/facebook/linkedin/etc) some low budget intern would be running it in between coffee runs.
CEO’s are a tight-knit club mainly – and as yet it’s not permeated up to the top – but it will.
Lots of relevant examples of where it’s turned companies fortunes around quicker than say – implementing supply-chain management solutions or similar would help.
Impressed as they may be by Barack Obama etc it’s probably still noise level on their radar.
Incidentally – as a social sharing site – I couldn’t post my twitter-handle on the box for some reason – wouldn’t allow the last character
@richardjfrancis
You’re not considering the age difference here. GenY will use it more. GenX is so-so, and b4 that… slim to none. They just don’t have time for this. They use PR people for that.