ImageWorks Creative Blog

Should CEOs Be Fluent in Social Media?

Posted by Scott April 26, 2010

Mashable recently talked with Forrester Research CEO George Colony about whether or not company CEO's should be versed in social media:

Why are there so few top executives on Twitter and social media in general? What are some of the major fears and issues that are preventing that kind of adoption?: There are really three factors there: one is age. Hate to be so obvious about it, but most of these people are of the typewriter and Wite-Out generation. If you’re born in 1980 and onward you’re in the AIM generation. The next generation is the Facebook generation. The next generation after that is the iPhone generation. So only those three generations born since 1980 have lived in a world with social technology.

Before that, you may be the Apple II generation or you may be the IBM PC generation, but especially at college it wasn’t part of the life you lived; it wasn’t the air you breathed and the water you swam in. So age is a factor.

The second factor is the constraints: the first is regulatory, especially if you’re a public company. With Reg. FD (Regulation Full Disclosure), the FCC says that every time a CEO speaks, any current or potential investor must be able to hear it. They have not yet defined whether Twitter is at Reg. FD or the blog is Reg. FD or if Facebook is Reg. FD. They have said at times it is or sometimes it isn’t — it’s still not fully defined.

Read the full interview over at Mashable.

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