Vast majority of Fortune 500 CEO’s not using social media

Like law firm leaders, the vast majority of Fortune 500 CEOs are ignoring social media altogether. This per a new study from Domo, a business management software provider.

Matt Kapko (@mattkapko), summarizing the findings in a piece In CIO Magazine points out that only 39 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are active on one or more of the six major social networks — Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.

The numbers aren’t increasing either. The number of CEO’s actively participating on social networks has jumped only nine percent in the last four years. The latest study found that 61 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are not active on any major social platform today, while 70 percent were absent in 2012.

70 percent of the CEOs who do use social networks use only one platform. None are active on all six — no surprise there, I don’t know anyone who is.

LinkedI, as it is for lawyers and other professionals, is the starting point for CEO’s. But there only 161 of the Fortune 500 leaders using the social network. 70 percent of tge CEOs usung just one social network use LinkedIn.

Though the number of CEO’s using Twitter jumped 16 percent in the last year to 50, they’re not tweeting often.

• 16 tweeted less than 25 times total since they started using the platform.
• 62 percent tweeted within the last 100 days, down 5 percent from last year.
• Half tweet once a month or less.
• The most active CEOs tweet about once every five days (last year, active CEOs tweeted every other day on average).

When it comes to Facebook, most of the 57 CEOs with Facebook accounts keep their activity private.

Guy Alvarez (@guylaw13), CEO of Good2bSocial, a social media consultancy for law firms, tells me that their study found only 19 out of the AmLaw 100 managing partners were using Twitter. Numbers were slightly better on LinkedIn but not by much.

Almost 40 percent of the AmLaw 100 managing partners do not have a LinkedIn profile, per Good2bSocial. And as of the middle of last year, only one managing partner has posted an update to their profile.

Missed opportunities here. One, for leaders looking to connect with their audience in an engaging fashion which establishes trust. And two, serving as a role model for employees when it comes to social media.

Image courtesy of Flickr by lcm1863