An article on Marketing Profs - Fortune 500 CEOs Shun Social Media expresses some surprise that a high number of top CEOs spend very little time on social media.
It does not surprise me at all.
CEOs of any size business had enough balls to juggle before social media arrived.
One of the characteristics of successful executives is the ability to use time effectively.
One of the worst aspects of social media is that it is a terrible time trap.
Chief Executives get paid large sums of money to run huge companies, not tweet or update Facebook.
For all the importance of businesses of any size having a social media presence, if I was a shareholder of a public company, I would be concerned if the CEO was too highly visible in social media.
The article quoted a survey which found that the CEOs engagement ranged from a high of 25.9% having a Linked In account to a low of 0.8% on Google Plus. 70% of those surveyed had no social media presence at all.
Linked In being at the top is not surprising, however I thought that both twitter at 3.8% and Google Plus would have been more popular. Low scores for Facebook (7.6%) and Pinterest do not surprise me.
Should CEOs of Fortune 500 or any size businesses be more visible on social media?
There is no question that increased exposure by and easier access to, CEOs and top executives can enhance the image of the company. It can also improve the attitude of employees. It can definitely be an important part of marketing strategy.
The big questions to be answered however are how much attention should an executive focus on social media and whether that is the best use of the executives expensive time.
Just as we wouldn’t expect CEOs to create all the advertising copy for off-line advertising, we should not expect them to spend a disproportionate amount of time, tweeting, updating or blogging.
Each business, CEO will have a different answer, some will be better at using social media and embrace it more, others will either ignore it or delegate it.
If you need help deciding how much time you or your business should be spending on social media, call me at 1-866-250-4504
