Survey: Consumers, Employees Trust CEOs Who Use Twitter More
BOSTON (CBS) - Although 140 million people are on Twitter, most of them are not chief executives.
But Twitter, say local CEOs who tweet frequently, is an important communication tool both to have conversations with customers and to listen to what their employees are saying.
A new survey suggests both consumers and employees place great trust in social media-savvy CEOs, rather than ones who can't navigate through the world of tweets and LinkedIn updates.
In that report, 77 percent of consumers and 82 percent of employees said they trust a tweeting CEO more, according to data from Brandfog .
Gallery: 12 CEOs who use Twitter
George Colony, CEO of Cambridge-based Forrester Research Inc., who has nearly 12,000 Twitter followers, goes so far as to say that a CEO who hasn't created a social media profile within the next five years should not be a CEO.
Colony finds Twitter valuable in four distinct ways. He uses it to listen and talk to customers; to listen and engage with employees; to market his ideas, which often are in the form of blog posts; and to gauge the "zeitgeist" by following a select group of 62 people, including fellow CEO tweeters, like Dell Inc. CEO Michael Dell and Zappos.com Inc. CEO Tony Hsieh.
Art Papas, CEO of Boston-based Bullhorn Inc., tweets first and foremost to get great content. He admits that while Twitter helps him keep up with tech trends, he's also careful about what he tweets. His philosophy, in a riff on Google's famous motto, is "tweet no evil."
"I have to be careful," Papas told the BBJ. "I can't always say what's on my mind."
Jeff Freedman, founder and CEO of the Boston ad shop Small Army Inc., likes Twitter, because he says it helps give him a personality.
"Because of your title, people think you're inaccessible," said Freedman. "Twitter gives you a personality and lets people see who you are. And I want people to see that."
Lisa van der Pool of the Boston Business Journal can be seen weekdays at 6 a.m. on WBZ-TV.
You can follow Lisa on Twitter at @lvanderpool.
