There’s a misconception that everybody ‘gets’ social media. That everybody is taking part. And that business, in particular, are all developing social media strategies. This just isn’t true. Whilst we have witnessed a monumental rise in social media use over the last 18 months or so, there are still some who are significantly more innovative than others.
In fact we often surprise our clients are FreshNetworks by telling them that they are among the most innovative companies in Europe in their use of social media, and online communities in particular.
In July we’re starting a series looking at Why Social Media Matters and in particular how you can convince a CEO that social media is the single most important thing that their business should embrace. That’s why it was great to see a presentation from the US that looks at social media use by Fortune 100 CEOs. The findings are not a huge surprise – most CEOs are not actively using social media themselves and those who are typically work in the tech industry.
I’d love to drill down further in this area and look at use by Fortune 100 companies – even if their CEOs are not personally making active use of social media, are the companies themselves? And if they are is there a correlation between social media active CEOs and the extent to which the organisation embraces social media.
However, it’s interesting to see the level of social media adoption among the people who run some of America’s biggest businesses and that’s why the presentation is our Required Reading for this week. Clearly some work to do here.
Some more reading
- Offline Word of Mouth Still More Powerful Than Online Analogue (profy.com)
- Throwing Sheep In The Boardroom (accmanpro.com)
- Fortune-100 CEOs Remain Social-Media Hermits (marketingvox.com)
- Top CEO’s Appear to be Anti Social (Media, that is) (marketingpilgrim.com)
Original Post: http://blog.freshnetworks.com/2009/07/are-fortune-100-ceos-social-media-slackers/
