Why CEOs should stop preaching and start tweeting

These days, a lot of the chatter surrounding the power of social media might be better considered as preaching to the choir. Because let’s face it; unless a company resides under a rock, they’re using it. But what about the CEOs or presidents of all of those businesses engaged in social media? Where is their presence in the social media sphere?

That presence – or lack there of – was the topic du jour in a recent article published by Forbes titled “CEOs On Social Media: Do As I Say, Not As I Do.” In it, author Steve Olenski, highlighted why the leaders of companies, big or small, should stop preaching and start singing along with the rest of the choir.

To prove the point, Olenski took a close look at the results of a survey conducted by BrandFog, which revealed that more than 82% of respondents are likely or much more likely to trust a company whose CEO and team engage in social media. Further results showed that 77% of respondents are likely or much more willing to buy from a company if a leader is involved in social media.

Olenski also included stats from the #domosocial experiment conducted by Josh James and his company Domo. James, who is known for his activity on the social media front, teamed up with CEO.com to research just how many Fortune 500 CEOs are using social media. And what that work revealed is that a disappointing 70 percent were nowhere to be found – not on Facebook, not on Twitter and not even on LinkedIn. And of those all-important leaders that actually could be found, only nine of them had tweeted in the past 100 days.

The message that this sends to consumers who care is that CEOs are just too busy to pay attention to their customers (A.K.A. fans and followers) – that they are too important to take a few minutes to interact. Even worse, it may send the message that a company’s leader doesn’t understand how social media works or how to use it.

Beyond the external benefits that can come from a CEO sending out the occasional tweet or status update, there are internal benefits to consider, as well. Employees that were surveyed by BrandFog believe that if their CEO is engaged, crisis management can improve and so can morale. An astounding 81 percent said that social CEOs make better leaders.

“It really is mind-blowing and in fact quite hypocritical when you get right down to it when you consider the fact that CEOs openly acknowledge the importance of the use of social media for their companies yet don’t see the need to be socially active themselves,” Olenski wrote.

So if a leader wants to change his or her out-of-touch perception, it could be as easy as occasionally sharing an interesting article on Facebook or on Twitter. Consider it: The time it takes is minimal, but the lasting effects can be huge.