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In the recent times, there is an increasing buzz about the CEO & his / her social media presence. The buzz is about how the CEO & his office are missing the trick by their absence on social media platforms. These recent 2 articles here & here highlight the lack of CEO presence online & how at times the CEO’s office is doing catching up in case of an online crisis.

This post is based on my own experiences & some insights & understanding on the issue.

Why CEO’s or the organizations are not jumping into building his / her social media presence.

Reason 1 : The CEO is Media Shy

Ask yourself this question. How many CEO’s you know of out of Fortune 100 companies? You know the answer. Not many. The CEO is not a public person & would let the others in the company do the talking. But ironically in this case, neither the CEO, nor the other person developes a social media presence for themselves, thus exposing the organization & themselves to the risk of social media crisis.

Reason 2 : The corporate communication doesn’t think of CEO PR

It may sound absurd but ask a corporate communication manager on his companies CEO’s PR strategy & you will get a sense of it. The biggest of the biggest organization will admit that the CEO PR strategy is not a priority till the time the CEO himself pushes for it. CEO social media presence thus falls into the same trap. Lack of focus on building the CEO presence.

Reason 3 : CEO doesn’t think Social Media is serious business

For the CEO, social media is another buzz word. He may focus on the tradional form of media, but neither him nor the organization thinks that it is prudent to invest in social media. Building the CEO’s social media presence for them is not even on the radar.

The other aspects like content generation, dedicated team for CEO office take a back seat in light of above reasons. It is important that organizations realize that they need an active & an engaging face that compliments the dynamics of today social media environment & the communication objectives.