CEOs such as Yahoo's Marissa Mayer and Square's Jack Dorsey are finding Twitter an essential platform to communicate with their customers 

Like it or not, the duties of a CEO aren’t limited to what goes on in the boardroom. Taking that top job means entering into a committed relationship with a company’s bottom line, and it means always putting the welfare of that business above all else. A CEO drives the heart and soul of a company; thus, they become representative of that entity as a brand name. As long-established firms begin to crumble under the weight of dime-a-dozen start-ups, it’s become more important than ever for CEOs to take the helm and navigate towards unknown waters in order to assert their companies as strong, consolidated brands with unique selling points. That work undeniably requires a platform – and while many greying CEOs still harbour a phobia of all things social media, there’s no longer anywhere else to turn.

Social media isn’t just a passing fad. A quarter of the earth’s population claims membership to at least one social media site – and by next year, those numbers are forecasted to swell to over two billion. Global leader Facebook already commands an inbuilt audience of 1.28 billion. Meanwhile, niche sites like professional network LinkedIn are catching on like wildfire, growing at a rate of some 100 million followers per year. Those are figures that companies simply cannot afford to ignore. Customers, investors and the media all live, work and shop online. The sites they frequent harbour new and much-needed opportunities for growth. With companies already living or dying based upon their abilities to maintain strong online profiles, the time has never been better for company leaders to jump into the deep end and widen the scope of their public profile – and the quickest place to consolidate those strengths is via Twitter.

Be a good listener
At half a billion active users, Twitter is by no means the globe’s largest social media outlet; however, its audience is without doubt the web’s most active. Every day, 255 million people trawl through the site’s 140-character micro-blogs on the hunt for fresh news, entertainment and general insight. Around 500 million tweets are sent out on a daily basis, and the better the content, the more clout users gain. As a result, the site is naturally populated by scores of highly motivated PR units that help companies spew out official lines on new products and services. Yet while that facility is invaluable, it doesn’t capture the authoritative punch of words from a company’s leading man or woman. If CEOs wish to enhance their company as a brand, they can’t simply leave it to the drones in marketing; they need to be delivering insightful output on Twitter, too. At present, less than a third of top CEOs have profiles on the site; however, one survey by BRANDFog estimates that over 80 percent of corporate employees believe Twitter is now one of the most important communications channels in existence.

The day billionaire investor Warren Buffett joined Twitter, he gained over 1,000 followers per hour. Today, he has 843,000 – and while Buffett is now able to transmit his sporadic, innermost thoughts to that extraordinarily high volume of users at will, he’s also been given a direct line for feedback from hundreds of thousands clients, employees and members of the general public. That’s invaluable to a vast majority of customers who would have never been able to access the CEOs’ impenetrable waiting room. But it should be equally valued by bosses. Jacqueline Gold, the CEO of lingerie retailer Ann Summers, has learned that lesson only too well. Like nearly a quarter of all CEOs, Gold was initially concerned about joining the social media network because of the inherent risk of saying the wrong thing and causing some sort of backlash. But she flourished on the site. “I just think you can not underestimate the engagement value of Twitter – and also not to forget Twitter is the new garden fence so it is better to be in control of that and have your say,” she has said.

Now, Gold has over 43,000 followers, and gains more every day by seeking to engage with users in fresh ways. Examples include her weekly Women on Wednesday (#WOW) campaign, in which fledgling female business owners are invited to tweet any and all business questions at the £500m CEO. In answering those questions and building links, Gold has helped redefine public perceptions of the lingerie outlet as a thoughtful and hugely successful enterprise. Similarly, Virgin CEO Richard Branson has utilised Twitter as a forum for building ties with other aspiring innovators. With the help of his irresistibly cavalier take on business, the self-made billionaire has been able to rack up 4.2 million followers on the site. Yet he doesn’t clog his personal profile with one-way posts pushing Virgin’s latest products; instead, he engages with would-be businessmen from across the globe. Branson talks back. And more importantly, he gives advice.

Mark Bertolini, CEO of insurance giant Aetna, inadvertently chalked up similar victories using the platform. Upon joining Twitter three years ago, Bertolini was stormed with abuse from unhappy customers. Where such complaints would have likely fallen on the deaf ears of a corporate PR department, however, Bertolini actually listened. Last summer, he was the subject of abuse from hundreds of users after a colon-cancer patient vented on the site about hitting the cost ceiling of his health insurance plan with Aetna. Against all odds, the CEO actually reached right back to the patient via Twitter. Bertolini pulled some strings, and Aetna ended up covering the full extent of the man’s bills. 20 years ago, that result would have been inconceivable.

Digital wildfires
With the help of Twitter’s immense user base, the positive business impacts of online engagements are limitless. In fact, there are hardly any drawbacks for CEOs, save one: bosses had better know what they’re talking about. The site is littered with cautionary tales of routine business posts gone awry; therefore, it’s worth noting some general guidelines to follow when posting. First and foremost: keep it relevant. Fashion CEO Kenneth Cole caused public backlash by attempting to shove inappropriate plugs for his clothes label into posts about trending topics. Cole’s first foray into unsubtle branding came in February 2011, when Egypt found itself gripped in the bloody coils of the Arab Spring. As millions of users across the globe looked to Twitter for insight on the conflict, they were instead greeted (and appalled) by Cole’s two cents: “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumour is they heard our new spring collection is now available online”. After torrents of abuse, Cole’s company issued an apology on his behalf.

There’s also such a thing as being too relevant. Take the online misadventures of Carnival CEO Micky Arison, for example. In 1988, Arison decided to purchase the NBA’s Miami Heat for a cool $32.5m. Today, the team is worth almost half a billion. That’s largely because it boasts some of basketball’s best (and most expensive) talent. So, when its star players LeBron James and Dwayne Wade decided to walk out of offseason training as part of a league-wide players’ strike, Arison reacted poorly. The angry owner decided to vent his union negotiation woes on Twitter. Little did he know that was a strict violation of NBA league policy – and he ended up being fined a whopping $500,000 just for a brief, 140-character view on his stable of ego-driven athletes.

That’s not to say sharing important company information is always a bad thing, though. In July 2012, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings turned heads when he announced on his personal page that the video-distribution company had reached the milestone of users having streamed over one billion hours’ worth of films using the service. By the end of the day, the company’s stock posted a five percent gain. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was less than impressed. The regulatory body initially warned Hastings he may be liable for violating laws designed to ensure that all company investors have full access to any company information of notable material value. The SEC argued the announcement was unfair, as the general public wouldn’t have been able to see the information without Netflix having submitted an 8-K filing with the SEC. Hastings scoffed, arguing that sharing the information with Netflix’s 200,000 social media followers surely would have alerted more people about the company milestone than a regulatory filing. In a true sign of the viable impacts social media is forcing upon business, Netflix actually won the argument.

Bosses can’t afford to ignore social media anymore. In the UK, a recent PwC survey indicated that 91 percent of CEOs are currently seeking to strengthen their social media engagement strategies. Last year, there was a 55 percent increase in the number of Fortune 500 CEOs who had signed up for the social media site.

Sites like Twitter offer a formidable set of benefits. Would-be users must tread carefully, of course. Each company and its CEO should play to their strengths; for example, those who have never been called ‘funny’ may do well to avoid attempts at humour. Likewise, bosses must know their audience. Unloading a set of sincere personal views may allow the boss of a major corporation to appear more human – but there’s no point in doing so if those views end up outing them as a bigot.

But the benefits of social media engagement outweigh the risks. Sites like Twitter allow instant access to hundreds of millions of potential customers, clients and journalists, but they also offer leaders a chance to enhance public perceptions organically. Sometimes, all it takes to win over a customer is proof that someone is listening.