IBM Study: If You Don’t Have a Social CEO, You’re Going to be Less Competitive

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This post should really be labeled a story of how Hollywood personalities have increased their social value by gaming on airlines and ranting on Youtube and NOW, after how many years, Wall Street CEOs are on board with social media. All CEOs should (now) be spearheading social media given Facebook’s $100 Billion IPO this week, solidifying that social does indeed generate both customer loyalty and revenues!

The list of the world’s CEOs regularly includes celebrities, billionaires, big egos, risk takers, and failures. What it does not include are social media experts; but that’s about to change. When IBM (NYSE: IBM) conducted its study of 1709 CEOs around the world, they found only 16% of them participating in social media. But their analysis shows that the percentage will likely grow to 57% within 5 years.

Why? because CEOs are beginning to recognize that using email and the phone to get the message out isn’t sufficient anymore.

The big takeaway: That using social technologies to engage with customers, suppliers and employees will enable the organization to be more adaptive and agile.

“As CEOs ratchet up the level of openness within their organizations, they are developing collaborative environments where employees are encouraged to speak up, exercise personal initiative, connect with fellow collaborators, and innovate,” the IBM study concluded.

Simply put, CEOs and their executives set the cultural tone for an organization. Through participation, they implicitly promote the use of social technologies. That will make their organizations more competitive and better able to adapt to sudden market changes.

Click here to read other key findings…

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