RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Flagship Social, a leading social media agency dedicated to executive branding, today released its second annual ranking of the Top 50 Executives on Social Media. The 2020 ranking comes in light of the prominent shift to a remote workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic, which played a large role in accelerating executive adoption of social media. Analyzing the performance of nearly 400 executives of companies with revenues of more than $1 billion on four platforms – LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – Flagship Social ranked 10 executives as having the most robust social media presence, with four individuals returning from last year’s Top 10:
- Ray Dalio, Founder and Co-Chairman, Bridgewater Associates (#4 last year)
- Ronan Dunne, Executive VP, Verizon
- John Legere, Former CEO, T-Mobile (#9 last year)
- Christian Klein, CEO, SAP
- Milind Pant, CEO, Amway (#2 last year)
- Steve Hare, CEO, Sage Group
- Hans E. Vestberg, Chairman and CEO, Verizon (#3 last year)
- Chuck Robbins, CEO, Cisco Systems
- Helena Morrissey, Former Head of Personal Investing, LGIM
- Patti Pope, CEO, CMS Energy Corporation
Other prominent names in the top 50 included Bill Gates, Microsoft (#12); Michael Bloomberg, Bloomberg LP (#15); Ed Bastian, Delta (#16); Richard Branson, Virgin Group (#21); David Solomon, Goldman Sachs (#25); Brian Chesky, Airbnb (#30); Tory Burch, Tory Burch (#34); Sundar Pichai, Alphabet (#40); and Elon Musk, Tesla (#49).
The Top 50 Executives on Social Media is the only such ranking of C-Suite executives’ performance on social media across platforms. It aims to look beyond large followings and highlight executives who had a robust social presence, balancing consistency, engagement and exceptional content.
“The shift to a remote workforce has accelerated the need for executives to adopt and leverage social media in order to positively connect with not just their own team but also their customers and other stakeholders,” said Tia Nanjappan, Head of the Flagship 50 project at Flagship Social. “This year, we saw the most successful executives using social media to empathize with their stakeholders and humanize their personal brands while also leveraging their voices for social causes.”
Among other findings:
- 90% of the executives analyzed were active on LinkedIn, 68% on Twitter, 33% on Instagram and 32% on Facebook.
- The industries with the most highly ranked executives include (1) Telecom; (2) Aviation; and (3) Technology.
- The executive with the highest following across all platforms, for the second year in a row, was Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, with more than 122 million followers.
- Microsoft’s Bill Gates continues to have the largest followings on Twitter and LinkedIn, with Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom having the largest Instagram following and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg having the highest following on Facebook.
- LGIM’s Helena Morrissey, CMS Energy’s Patti Poppe, Cisco Devnet’s Susie Wee and Apple’s Angela Ahrendts are a few of the women listed, representing an increase in female executives whose social presences made the Top 50 this year.
“Executive presences on social media are quickly becoming the norm and we are excited to see increasing diversity, stronger social brands, and new names in the top 50,” said Nanjappan.
In addition to an inside look at the top five executives, the report also includes a listing of the Top 50 executives and provides an opportunity for people to nominate names for next year’s list.
Methodology
Uniquely, the study looked at several qualities to evaluate each executive’s presence across social media rather than just one platform. Among the qualities evaluated were content quality and relevance; responsiveness to followers; engagement rate; posting frequency; followers and follower ratio; and profile completeness. Each executive was awarded an index score relative to their peers for each platform on which they were active. These scores were then combined into a master index using a weighting that varied based upon their active platforms.
The ranking went beyond performance of individual social presences to identify those doing well across the leading social media networks used for business: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. To reflect the ever-changing landscape of social media, the methodology this year included executives who had a presence on only one social platform. Click here to download the report and methodology.
About Flagship Social
Based in Raleigh, North Carolina, Flagship Social is a specialized social marketing firm focused on personal branding for prominent individuals such as C-suite executives, entrepreneurs, public figures and non-profits. The company has worked with some of the most successful companies in the world, including publicly traded Fortune 500 companies, startup firms and multibillion-dollar private corporations. For more information, visit https://flagshipsocial.com and follow Flagship Social on LinkedIn, Twitter or on Instagram @flagship.social.
