The risk of contracting foot-in-mouth disease seems just too high for many.
‘Cynicism’
But Robert Glaesener, boss of Twitter analytics firm Talkwalker, believes the fact that most of them are aged 50-to-60 has more to do with it – they’re simply too old to understand social media fully, he says.
Even tweeting extrovert Sir Richard Branson, who has more than six million followers and epitomises the consumer-friendly, approachable boss, is prone to the occasional gaffe.
His tweet on the day of the fatal Virgin Galactic crash last year began: “Space is hard – but worth it.”
This was considered insensitive by some commentators and led others to question the legitimacy of his space tourism mission.
“There is a real danger that something that is well meant can end up creating cynicism on social media,” warns Mr Glaesener. “While most of the responses to that tweet were positive and supportive, there were also negative responses with people questioning his motives.”
But leaving Twitter campaigns to your corporate PR team sometimes isn’t any better.
When British Gas decided to hold a Twitter Q&A with customers on the same day it announced price rises of 9.2%, it led to a barrage of abuse hurled at the then customer services director, Bert Pijls.
Source: Should your boss be tweeting more…or not at all? – BBC News
