Register now and reserve your spot to learn:

• Tips on working with management and legal for a smooth integration into your IR plan.
• How to set realistic objectives and measure your efforts.
• Innovative ways content is being shared and how this information can by synergized with other social media networks and your IR website.
• About interaction with retail and institutional investors and how investor inquiries are handled.
• Best practices for establishing the channel as a credible source of company information.

If you have any questions that you’d like us to address please leave a comment below and we’ll be sure to answer during the webinar.

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Newport is a technology solutions driven company organized to focus on serving five of the fastest-emerging businesses in the technology space – RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification), WiMax, eLearning, and LED Digital Signage and LED Lighting solutions.

Newport has embraced several social channels including Twitter, YouTube, Posterous and FlickR to broaden the company’s audience.  They also have a Facebook account which we highlighted in our recent whitepaper for their exceptional use of the channel.  For example, the information is current and up-to-date with a good balance of material including recent press releases, links to shareholder conference calls and videos that all help to provide a better context about their business.

So based on Newport’s inclusion in our whitepaper and the “formal launch” of their Social Media program, I contacted Isaac Cruz, the company’s Digital Strategy Manager, to gather some more background information about how this all came to be.

1. How long has Newport been using social media? And what tool did you begin using first and why?
The company launched its social media program in October 2009.  Initially, we saw the power of Google and the importance of SEO, so we created profiles which were verified by Google. We then signed up for Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts.

2. What was the original driving force behind the company’s decision to use social media?
In the early stages of the company’s life, our focus was on Research and Development.  As our business progressed and R&D concluded, there was a natural gravitation towards ways to promote the company.  The Board of Directors saw the value of having a presence on the social networks and wanted to leverage those channels to bring the NDT brand to investors, and potential industry partners and  customers.

3. Were you originally hired on as the Digital Strategy Manager?
At a start up, employees have to wear many hats. Originally, I was hired on to manage the office i.e.  assist executives, do payroll and accounts payables for the corporate office as well as our two branch offices.  As our company was progressing, I was asked to be involved with developing the social media program, which was initiated by an external IR firm. Based on my background and passion, this area of marketing and sales is where I really felt that I could use my talents to benefit the company. Eventually, we developed a small, internal team to take over the social media efforts.

4. Were you able to draw on your own experience with social media?
Back in 2003 or 2004, my college football coaches used Facebook to announce practice and workout schedules. After the coaches would dismiss us from practice, they would yell, “Check your Facebooks!” so we all would know what the next meeting would entail.   Twitter was completely new to me. Over time, we developed an understanding of hashtags, searching and how to write effective tweets in 140 characters.  We also wanted to develop an understanding of url shortening services like bit.ly and tiny.url and how to track the clicks on these links.

We started out with a corporate Twitter account and one main Facebook account. Each Digital Strategist had their own Twitter and Facebook accounts.   As we became more familiar with friends on the company’s Facebook account and what they were interested in, we decided to break out the various segments of our business. In order to be Facebook SEO, we developed fanpages specific to technologies we specialize in, such as RFID and digital signage. Whether it is on Facebook, or Google, we want to provide quality content and be easily found by those interested in the industries we are involved with.

5. Are there any channels that are strictly dedicated to investor relations?
The original strategy was to help increase awareness of our overall business.  We wanted to broaden our message and increase awareness about our company to all key audiences which includes potential partners, investors and customers.  As stated in our release by our CEO, Don Danks “Leveraging digital media and implementing this strategic communication program provides shareholders and clients access to NPDT’s most recent developments, technology solutions, and a roadmap for revenue growth.  Digital and Social media are becoming powerful tools for branding and supporting sales efforts.  We intend to make a consistent and serious commitment to utilizing the power of the medium, benefiting our shareholders.”

Our corporate Facebook page is a great forum to connect with a Digital Strategist who is one degree away from the decision makers of the company. We are committed to providing our investors with whatever information we can release about the business.

6. Is there any interaction on any of the social networks with retail or institutional shareholders?
We have shareholder inquiries mainly on Facebook.  We also have a few who DM me on Twitter. They normally always follow up with a phone call, as it is hard to address questions in 140 characters.

7. What prompted you to formally press release your digital strategy and social media program now?
There are several reasons why we issued a press release regarding our digital strategy and social media program now:

The company has really ramped up over the course of the year. We have transitioned from a R&D company to one with tangible products and are now in full sales mode.  As we have press released our progress, we now have sufficient content to share over social channels by providing links from our website which has increased visitors.

We also wanted to make sure we understood our company’s technological capabilities, our audience and the channels we are using first. In the beginning we did a lot of listening in the social communities and wanted to balance the company voice to ensure we were conveying the right messages.

Further, since launching the program in October of last year, we have put together a Digital Strategy Team. Each team member specializes in areas of social media that best suits their backgrounds and skills. We are solely concerned with ROI which we dub “Return on Interaction” with increased awareness of the company. You never know what relationships could be cultivated in the social business networks.

Lastly, we have a unique business that is not yet two years old. For a technology company, we are progressing very fast.  As such, I posted the following YouTube video that explains the functions of the strategtically located offices around the globe: 

Of note, we do all of our videos in-house like the one above. It takes relatively little time and is very cost-effective!

8. What other channels have you adopted over the course of the year?
We recently added a Posterous account where we post press releases and provide news about the business and background information on our products:

We don’t have a lot of comments on there yet, but we have had 6,913 views since adding the account in May of this year.

9. Any advice for other public companies of the value of using social media?
I can’t speak for all public companies because each company is in a specific industry and has their own specific vision and goals, but I do know this. Followers of social networks really appreciate the personal connection they have with a public company when a representative personally addresses a question, or concern they have. We feel that it is important to accurately, and promptly respond to all inquiries that pertain to the business and employees of NDT. We are actively asking for NDT followers to voice their questions and ideas about the business, or technology on our networks so we provide them with what they want to see. We want our audience to know that we are working not only for NDT, but also for our shareholders.

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A review of how Polycom uses each channel revealed consistent messaging and current and up-to date information.  Some of the senior management team also regularly tweet and are active bloggers providing additional commentary on an industry-related topic or company specific news. With it increasingly difficult to attract and retain investors in this economy, this sends a very clear message in terms of their transparency and their personal interest in listening to their stakeholders.

The fact that the senior management is seemingly committed to the company’s social media strategy and that the company in general was doing such a great job over several social channels, I thought I’d contact them to see how they became to use the social networks they are; which department(s) is responsible for the strategy and who ultimately is in charge of the content.

After doing a scan of all of their social media accounts, I reached out to Caroline Japic (@CarolineJapic), Vice President, Corporate Communications and Customer Marketing as she was listed as the contact on Facebook.  As it turns out, the Corporate Communications team was instrumental in implementing Polycom’s social media strategy.  Here’s what we talked about:

1.    How long has Polycom been using social media? And what tool did you begin using first and why? Polycom employees began blogging several years ago, but we launched the official Polycom Social Media Program in January 2009. We created Twitter, LinkedIn Groups, Facebook Fan pages, and a YouTube Channel at that time. Yammer was already being used inside the company.

2.    Who was responsible for implementing social media? The Corporate Communications team defined and implemented the program, but we recruited the entire employee base (nearly 3000 strong) to participate in the program.

3.    How did the Corporate Communications team get buy-in? The Corporate Communications team researched social media options and brought the recommendations to our Chief Marketing Officer Heidi Melin. Heidi was our executive champion, helping to gain support and buy in from the Executive team.

4.    Any resistance from legal counsel? Not at all—Polycom legal is very progressive. We worked with our legal team to revise our “Blogging Policy” to become a “Social Media Policy”. Once we agreed on guidelines they were in full support of the Social Media program.

5.    Are there any channels that are strictly dedicated to investor relations? Not yet. We use our main “All About Polycom” Twitter account the most at this point, but are expanding our IR activities using other social media channels for our next earnings call in October. We do host archived video streams from our quarterly earnings calls on Polycom.com/investors.

6.    If no, what would be the determining factor(s) to do so? While we considered a direct channel for IR, we found that those interested in IR are also interested in the other events happening at Polycom such as new product launches and customer win announcements. So, we made the decision to use our existing channels to communicate the IR message.

7.    Is there any interaction on any of the social networks with retail or institutional shareholders? If so, do you have a procedure in place to defer to the IR dept? If we receive any IR requests, they go directly to our CFO Mike Kourey who manages the IR program.

8.    Some of the senior management team has Twitter accounts and actively blog.  How did this come to be?
As part of the initial plan, we had a training session with the Executive Staff and helped them set up their Twitter accounts and Facebook pages. Other execs, such as our Co-Founder Jeff Rodman, have been active bloggers for years and were early adopters of social media. We encouraged participation by all Polycom employees and continue to do so in quarterly all-company meetings, using employee contests, and through ongoing training.

9.    The content seems synergized amongst all of the channels, is this driven by one person who informs the others of the information they should share on the channel?
The Corporate Communications team shares our main channels so that the burden doesn’t fall on only one person. We discuss social media efforts during our regular meetings and encourage team members to post relevant content on their respective channels.

10.    Do you monitor your social media efforts? Yes, we use Radian 6 to monitor and measure our efforts. We have daily reports that are routed to the appropriate departments for action where needed.

11.    Is it important to measure the success of your social media efforts?  If so, how is success measured? Absolutely.  At Polycom, we measure all of our Corporate Communications programs. For our social media efforts, we measure trends, mentions, share of voice, tone of voice, activity spikes, and we watch our conversation cloud very carefully. Success is measured by analyzing a combination of all of these factors.

12.    Do you have a social media policy? Yes, we do. It covers all employees and their social media efforts.

13.    Anything notable you’d like to share i.e. increased website traffic or other less tangible things such as better consumer relations etc., you have seen from using social networks? We compare the social media results with the results from our Customer Experience program to identify trends. We’ve also improved our customer service efforts–anyone who has a challenge with a Polycom product and Tweets about it will be contacted by our customer service team.

14.    Now that you have been using social media for two years, have you changed your strategy for its use? We haven’t changed our strategy, but we’ve evolved it. A good example is that we are adding more IR activities, but not changing our overall strategy.

15.    Any advice for other public companies of the value of using social media? Don’t be surprised if there are many nay-sayers when you start the program. However, progressive companies need to stay abreast of how their various audiences (media, customers, partners, etc.)  are receiving information, and social media is an important information source for many. Social media creates a unique opportunity for conversation, and that conversation is happening with or without you. As the traditional role of the media continues shifts to social media, those who are listening and participating in the conversation via social media will be the ones who win.

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Each week, we tackle three-four questions that address IR-related issues, trends and to generally exchange ideas. The session has garnered quite the following and has become a popular hashtag on Twitter.

Recently, @IR_practice one of the regulars and a great IR resource in general put out an open call to #irchat asking if anyone could share a link on best practices for organizing an investor day.  With experience as both an in-house IRO and IR consultant, I began to look through my files to see if I had anything to offer.  I also put in a few requests to friends and ex-colleagues in the IR profession and was surprised that no one had anything written down.

So in an effort to generate some concrete best practices, I posed this question on #irchat this week.  The question generated a lot of great ideas so I thought it would be useful to compile the output (all I have to say is thank goodness for whatthehashtag).  If you have something to add, please do – as it’ll help all IROs and IR professionals around the globe.

I have gone through the transcript and have broken the conversation down into key areas:

Making the Decision

There are many reasons to host an investor day.  It can be as simple as providing a general corporate update to providing details around a recent event such as an FDA approval or a merger or acquisition.  To be simplistic they can help get the broader story out.  They can also help investors get familiar with the management team (and help them gain confidence in them). Similarly, they can give the management team the opportunity to gain experience speaking in front of investors.

Sometimes, companies may also combine an investor day in conjunction with an industry meeting which is a good time to do so as some key investors may be in town already.

Time of year, Location and Time of Day

The consensus on the best time to host an investor day was to avoid earnings season.  Investors typically cover more than one company so they will have more than company they are following reporting at the same time and will be busy putting out their reports.  Further, an investor day should be held when you have something new to share and if you just reported earnings, it is likely that you won’t have much more to say to them for the time being.

Once you decide when you are going to have your investor day, careful thought should be put into the location.  You should consider where the majority of your investors reside and have it in a location that is central and easily accessible.

In addition to location, the time is also crucial and it was determined that the best day to have an investor event is a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday in the morning or lunch time, with breakfast or lunch served.  Although an interesting point was made in support of having the event on a Friday: there may be incentive for an investor to go (especially if it is out of town) as they could make a weekend out of the trip.

Company Participants

Hosting an investor day can give a company the opportunity to provide access to other members of the management team. For example, having senior managers talk about their division will help generate a better understanding of the business.  It can also help the managers get first exposure to the capital markets.  In general, think about your sector and who internally could help investors gain a better understanding of your business.

In addition to internal members of the company, consider a presentation by an industry expert such as an analyst or economist who can provide a macro perspective.

Preparation

Adequately preparing the team is essential particularly for those who have never or are not exposed to this audience that often.  So a conversation about Reg FD is critical.  Also doing a dry-run of the presentation and having a mock Q&A will help everyone get comfortable and trained in what can/cannot be said.

At this stage of planning, you should post the information on your website.  A great suggestion was made to have a dedicated landing page that will go live on the day of the event.  You should provide where the event is being held and also provide bios of who will be speaking – especially if you decide to have external guest speakers.

You can also broaden your audience by webcasting and recording the presentation. Applied Materials ($AMAT) was referenced as an example of a good investor day as they did a video webcast from New York.  So you should also let visitors know it will be webcast and that a presentation will be made available after the event is over.

You may also consider an interactive discussion whereby investors can call in and ask live questions.  So you will have to consult a webcast service provider to help with the logistics. Note: video webcasts can be costly, so if it’s not in your budget, bare minimum is to webcast and record.  There is great value in doing this, as you can post the links on your website, embed them on SlideShare, YouTube or Vimeo so they can be easily shared by others.

Once you get the website details set up, you should also determine what materials will be made available to participants.  Someone made the point that attendees are leaving their laptops at home and instead using their smartphones.  So if you are using powerpoint, having a printed color copy with three slides to a page with lines to make notes (handout version) will allow them to jot stuff done if they want.

Also more companies have adopted social media so if you use Twitter you should consider live-tweeting the event.  If you do live-tweet, send out a couple of tweets a few days before the event, announcing the details as well as the hashtag that you’ll be using.  Hashtags enable people to follow a conversation about a certain topic in real-time.  Their increased popularity on Twitter has also led to a number of services (like whatthehashtag) which compiles a particular hashtag feed and archives it, so anyone can read the transcript at a later time.

Showtime

You should arrive early the day of the event – you want to ensure that any equipment such as projectors, screen etc. have been set up.  You may also want to do a quick spin through of the presentation to ensure it loads correctly and test the webcast feed to minimize any potential technical difficulties during the event.

If you are live-tweeting the event, you should remind attendees of the hashtag and of your twitter handle or of the person doing the live-tweets.  You should also encourage questions to come over the channel and reiterate that they must include the designated hashtag to ensure it is seen and can be addressed. Lastly, you may also want to set up a separate screen with a laptop so everyone can see the tweetstreeam.

In order to prepare for follow up, it is a good idea to have a table where attendees can sign in.  Someone should be sitting there to greet the arrivals, direct them to sign in and collect business cards.

The IRO should be the host and do the welcome and introductions of the panel.  This helps the IRO gain some visibility as it is more than likely that they have never met any of these investors in person before.

During the introductions, the IRO should establish whether questions will be taken during or left until the end.  In my experience I have seen it done both ways, but IMO I think it is more effective left until the end especially if there are several speakers.

During the Q&A it is always a good idea to get people to use a microphone and have the panel repeat the questions as you want to ensure it can be heard over the webcast.

After the main Q&A is over, sometimes attendees linger around to ask management questions. This is a good opportunity for the IRO to get introduced and let them know they can be contacted directly for any follow up.  It is also good for the IRO to put their face to their name as it will make it easier to contact the investor in the future.

Also if a tough question is being asked of management, by being there, the IRO can ensure that nothing is being disclosed that shouldn’t be.  They can also make a note of the question as it may reveal an issue that should be addressed in the company’s messaging. It should also be noted if an investor wants a softcopy of the presentation sent to them or want a follow up meeting with management.

A Few Things to Ponder

There are a couple of ideas that were touched on during the discussion that I tried to weave into the categories, but I wanted to highlight them to gauge your feedback:

Giveaways

An example was given of a telephone company who offered participants at their investor day good deals on their products/services.   This could be a good way to enable investors to experience your business first hand. By doing so, they can intelligently provide feedback and ask informed questions.

Of note, this company is located in Europe so this may be an acceptable practice there.  I have been to investor days where companies have provided food samples etc.

What are your thoughts on giveaways? Is giving away a service like the phone company or a product acceptable?

Archive

How long should a company archive an investor day on their website? Three months?  Six months?  A year?  Further, if your company has more than one investor day during the year, should all of the archives be kept or should the first one be replaced with the most recent?

I look forward to your feedback!

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Download the latest Q4 Whitepaper on social media for public companies.

We’re thrilled to announce our latest report on the use of social media by public companies for investor relations.  If you’d like to get right to the report you can download it here.

Last year we released two research reports on Twitter for investor relations.  At that point, our sample of 350 companies told us that 35% were using Twitter for IR, in the current report you’ll see this adoption is now at 65%.

However, it’s not all about Twitter. So we expanded our research to include Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, YouTube and SlideShare.  Their respective adoption rates for IR came in at:

• 37% Facebook
• 29% YouTube
• 10% Corporate blog
• 10% SlideShare
• 93% LinkedIn

Social Media Used by Public Companies for IR

We included LinkedIn because company pages are created automatically and now anyone can “Follow” any company.

What impresses me the most about the state of the market is just how many companies are using social media . We’ve included hundreds of examples in this report and we’ve literally just scratched the surface.

The complete report is 96 pages and has tons of stats, charts and web links.

Register on the landing page and we’ll email you the whitepaper right away.

We hope you enjoy it.

Let us know what you think in the comments below! Is social media for IR reaching a tipping point?

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Similarly, they also use Facebook to connect and engage with shareholders and also populate this channel with company news, frequently post commentary on happenings in their industry and provide links to relevant sites.

So in a continuing effort to share how public companies are using social networks, I contacted Mike and Trina Elliott of NETGENPR, who helped CBAI develop their social media strategy. Of particular interest to me is how they manage their Facebook community; on the discussion board one of the topics is entitled “Removed Posts Board” where they archive the posts deemed inappropriate under the Discussion Guidelines and Terms of Use and give the reasons why they were removed.

What follows is a discussion with Mike who is Co-Founder & Head of Digital Strategy.  We talked about how CBAI’s strategy unfolded, how success was measured and how the “removed posts board” evolved.

SJ: You predominantly work with OTC clients – can you take us through a case study on Cord Blood?

ME: Sure, Cord Blood was officially our first public company client.  Their CEO, Matthew Schissler deserves a lot of credit for being an early believer in social media and embraced the possibilities with a great deal of patience and determination.  He was also committed from the beginning to providing us with the time and resources we required to do our job.  I don’t think I can stress enough how important it is to have buy-in from the CEO.  There are those that may want to give social media a try but lack the resolve and patience to stick with it when no meaningful ROI has materialized after a month or two of activity.  It really requires some vision and patience from Management and Mr. Schissler had both.

We knew a comprehensive strategy was going to be one of the keys for success.  Setting up a Facebook Fanpage and a Twitter account and then feeding in some automated content mixed with random posts or Tweets just wasn’t going to cut it.  There had to be a sense of purpose and social media objectives had to somehow relate directly back to business objectives.

The depth of the analysis is important on many levels but most of all it gives us a common reference when strategizing about communication.  We can train, facilitate and in some cases manage the social media channels for our clients but at the end of the day we can’t tell their story for them. We also can’t build relationships with their constituency for them either.

After conducting our initial audit we formulated a two pronged engagement plan consisting of:

1. Content component which was comprised of the digital multi-media content stream we would produce and distribute online; and an
2. Interactive component which consisted of the conversation and community building for the brand.

Social Media Engagement Plan

For our initial course of action we used (and do for all of our clients) a document called the Social Media Engagement Plan (SME). The SME is the roadmap that helps our team and the client’s team stay on the same page with regard to social media communication.  It also serves as a reminder of the purpose of the engagement from the standpoint of how it benefits the client’s target audience. In many cases the tools and technology take center stage and there is a lack of focus on purpose. We try to help our clients focus on the reason they’re occupying the online social networking space to begin with and what value they will strive to bring to their audience.

Once that purpose is articulated, the SME breaks down the objectives by target audience segment, message theme, platforms used, distribution strategy, media type, topics and complementary interactive strategy.  Each objective is built around fulfilling a brand need and an audience need so they align communication in a mutually beneficial manner.

SJ: How do you manage their Facebook Community?

ME: The deployment of social media tools implies a desire to serve your ecosystem in a diplomatic manner conducive to positive social interaction.  Within any social setting there are inevitable questions, comments, etc. that materialize which have the potential to cause alarm and discomfort.  Our intention as we help our clients build communities is to present to them the possibilities that community can provide long term.

Online conversations need to be managed diplomatically, openly, honestly and in a neutral manner.  If this is done consistently it will begin to earn trust for the brand.  Organizations must understand that people trust the opinions of their peers more than any other because they’ve been subjected to subterfuge from the commercial realm for so long that they’ve come to expect it.

CBAI was very proactive on Twitter announcing and linking updates on Facebook.  Soon after they gained a substantial fan base on Facebook and some fans  became quite active on the discussion board.  Some comments emerged that needed to be moderated which made it necessary to publish a set of Terms and Conditions to layout the expectations for appropriate dialogue. This provided the “rules of the road” and gave us a common reference for removal of posts which violated those Terms.  We wanted the audience to get the sense that we weren’t just removing posts because they were questions that made us uncomfortable but because they violated a specific rule which had been clearly spelled out.

When someone posts a negative comment or asks a difficult question if it’s framed as constructive and addresses something specific it can be addressed and in doing so will earn trust in that community. We then decided to archive the posts and the reasons they were removed – this shows a willingness to be transparent rather than hide things or “sweep them under the rug”.

In this manner we were able to turn some detractors into advocates. While their initial posts and inquiries were uncomfortable when they saw that we were listening to their concerns it had a big impact because they just don’t expect it.

SJ: How do you measure success?

ME: Success was measured both qualitatively and quantitatively. We of course focused on Social Media Metrics, i.e. number of users, number of sources, source distribution, sentiment, retweets, postrank score, video views as well as website Metrics like visits, average visit time, traffic sources and then overlaid that data with Business Metrics.

While those metrics are important we also focused on qualitative and engagement metrics. For example Facebook provides some great traffic and engagement data whereby we were able to view post quality, number of interactions, and number of active contributors.  Those numbers are a stronger indicator of success than raw follower numbers in our opinion. Since the intention is or should be to actually engage the audience in two-way dialogue.

SJ: Any words of wisdom for others looking at Facebook for IR?

ME: If the last 18 months has taught us one thing more than any other it’s that companies are going to have problems in this space unless they embrace social media in a holistic manner and incorporate it throughout the entire organization.  Isolated efforts by outside agencies on behalf of brands will soon become a thing of the past in my opinion.  Suffice it to say that the Agency value proposition has to be geared toward empowering organizations to take charge of their social media presence on the Web and teaching them how to formulate a best practices approach to doing so.

As we’ve also discovered most companies are initially inclined to do it themselves to at least some degree so why not help them down the most natural path.  This isn’t to say that using outside Agencies initially or for supplemental support isn’t justified in some cases.  What I really mean is every brand needs to take primary responsibility for its Social Media presence and establish strict guidelines for how that presence is managed.  Cord Blood America has implemented the proper disclosures on its Website, it’s Facebook Fan Page in addition to creating a formal Social Media Policy.  They’ve really led the way as far as I’m concerned in a compliant, best practices oriented deployment of these platforms for a public company.

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During the session participants were provided with an interactive demonstration of how social media is helping other public companies mitigate share value erosion, dramatically increase their website traffic and broaden their reach to potential investors.  As part of his guided tour he also revealed:

• Which social networks are being adopted by companies for IR first and why.
• How these companies are using social networks and deriving value from them.
• Tips to enhance engagement and streamline quarterly reporting.

Darrell’s presentation was loaded with over 50 examples and case studies of how public companies are using social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and blogs to enhance their IR program.

If you’re thinking about if, when and how to integrate social media with your investor relations program, you should watch the video version of the presentation.

I’ll also be providing an overview of the session with lots of links in an upcoming blog post…stay tuned!

Sheryl

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From my discussions with IROs whose companies have not yet taken the plunge with social media, the likely reasons for CEOs abstaining are concerns about disclosure risk, lack of time and quite frankly a discomfort with technology beyond email and browsing. This is not a slag but rather a reflection of the feedback we’ve been given with respect to senior executives adopting new technologies – oftentimes they simply prioritize other things.  Their social networks happen in other arenas and they may have other senior executives within their organizations actively involved in social media.

The topline results taken from UberCEO’s blog post reveal that:

• Only two CEOs have Twitter accounts.
• 13 CEOs have LinkedIn profiles, and of those only three have more than 10 connections.
• 81% of CEOs don’t have a personal Facebook page.
• Three quarters of the CEOs have some kind of Wikipedia entry, but nearly a third of those have limited or outdated information.
• Not one Fortune 100 CEO has a blog.

In reading the Uber post, be sure to scroll down to the comments. There are references to some interesting articles there as well, such as Doug Cornelius’ of  Compliance Building who shares his compliance risk perspective in ‘Corporate Blogs and Tweets Must Keep SEC in Mind’ and another by Dan Haugen of the Minneapolis Post on Best Buy’s new CEO, “Is Best Buy’s Brian Dunn the Most Socially Networked CEO?”

Should CEO’s get involved in social media? Those that do send a very clear message in terms of their transparency and their personal interest in listening to their stakeholders. Where there’s a willingness to get involved even a busy CEO will find the time with the support of a good team and the use of mobile devices. But the answer to the question in my opinion is really, “it depends”. Most organizations can benefit from involvement in social media but whether it happens with the CEO or other senior level executives really comes down to corporate strategy, division of labour and who would be most effective and committed to continuing the conversation.

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