Leadership

Survey: CEOs Still Skeptical of Social Media

By Jessica Stillman

Updated on: November 11, 2008 / 8:32 AM EST / MoneyWatch

The Find: Social media sites like Facebook and YouTube may be getting a lot of attention in the press (and on BNET) but less than one in three CEOs actually believe that they offer an effective means to communicate with stakeholders.
The Source: The 2008 PRWeek/Burson-Marsteller CEO survey.

The Takeaway: When PR Week solicited the opinions of 200 CEOs on the effectiveness of Web 2.0 the results were less than stellar for social media. Just 29 percent of CEOs said they believe social media tools can be an effective way to communicate with stakeholders. An equal percentage were willing to say outright that they believe social media outreach is ineffective. That means two out of three executives surveyed are either unconvinced about social media or actively hostile to it. Even though just shy of half the CEOs surveyed (42 percent) use social media in their personal lives, only 18 percent use social media to engage their companies' stakeholders.

Mark Penn, Burson-Marsteller's President and CEO argues "that companies that are not engaging in social media are taking a bigger risk than the companies that are."
The Question: Do you agree with Penn?

(Image of Web 2.0 icons by tobiaseigen, CC 2.0)