Global CEOs have embraced social media communication though the growth seems to be lagging far behind compared to the general public (Social CEO Report, 2013). The two social networks, Twitter and LinkedIn, though stand out in terms of respectable growth rate in number of CEOs embracing the new space (Figure 1). Twitter is a micro blogging social media platform which is used to obtain breaking news; communicate with friends, celebrities, and companies; follow the latest score of sporting events; etc. Users post “tweets” or mini-posts up to 140 characters in length via mobile texting, instant messaging, third-party applications, or the web (Rybalko & Seltzer, 2010). Unlike other social networking sites, “following” users on Twitter is not mutual. Other users have an option to follow members if their profiles are public, or they can ask permission to follow private member profiles. There are currently 28 (5.6%) CEOs on Twitter, which is definitely an improvement over last year’s 18 (3.6%) CEOs. The report categorizes certain CEOs as active Twitter users on the basis of tweets in the last 100 days. The survey suggests 19 (67.9%) CEOs as active Twitter users, which indicate that only 3.8% of the Fortune 500 CEOs are active Twitter users (Social CEO Report, 2013). Further, while Twitter's active global users are tweeting about twice per day, Fortune 500 CEOs who are active on Twitter are tweeting an average of 0.98 tweets per day (Social CEO Report, 2013).
Fortune 500 CEOs presence on Social Media Platforms (Adapted from: 2013 Social CEO Report)