Flagship Social Ranks the Top 50 Executives on Social Media

First-ever Qualitative Study of Executives’ Social Media Performance Finds Zillow’s Spencer Rascoff, Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Bloomberg LP’s Michael Bloomberg Among the Top 10

Flagship Social, a leading social media agency dedicated to executive branding, released its ranking of the Top 50 Executives on Social Media. Analyzing the performance of nearly 300 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:

1. Spencer Rascoff, Co-Founder and former CEO, Zillow
2. Milind Pant, CEO, Amway
3. Hans E. Vestberg, Chairman and CEO, Verizon
4. Ray Dalio, Founder and Co-CEO, Bridgewater Associates
5. Bill Gates, Co-Founder, Microsoft
6. Michael Bloomberg, Founder, Bloomberg LP
7. Tony Fernandes, Group Chief Executive Officer, AirAsia
8. Jean-Pascal Tricoire, Chairman and CEO, Schneider Electric
9. John Legere, CEO, T-Mobile
10. Tory Burch, Executive Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, Tory Burch

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Prominent names outside the top 10 included Richard Branson, Virgin (#20); Michael Dell, Dell Technologies (#21); Angela Ahrendts, Apple (#23); Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook (#29); Steve Case, Revolution LLC (#45); Mary Barra, General Motors (#49); and Jack Dorsey, Twitter (#50).

The Top 50 Executives on Social Media is the first such ranking of C-Suite executives’ performance on social media. Unlike other social media lists, the goal was not to find just the highest followed or most liked executives, but the executives who had built a robust social media presence across platforms.

“Executives are the face of today’s companies, and being on social media is no longer optional. It is critical for their efforts to positively influence the perception of their companies and their performance,” said Flagship Social CEO Kennedy Ricci. “The high scores of the executives at the top of our rankings represent robust cross-platform social media presences relative to their peers. They are not only increasing the visibility of themselves and their companies but also are building trust with key stakeholders.”

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Among other findings:

• 92% of the executives analyzed were active on LinkedIn, 89% on Facebook, 47% on Instagram and 43% on Twitter. Only 17% were active on all four platforms.
• The industries with the most highly ranked executives include (1) Telecom; (2) Retail; and (3) Technology.
• The executive with the most total followers across all platforms was Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, with 122,694,625 followers. Despite having the most followers overall, Zuckerberg did not rank among Flagship’s qualitative Top 50 Executives on Social Media.
• Microsoft’s Bill Gates has the largest followings on Twitter and LinkedIn. Those with most followers on the other channels – Facebook and Instagram – are their co-founders: Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook and Kevin Systrom on Instagram.
• Virgin’s Richard Branson was rated as having the best overall content.
• Twitter, with three, and LinkedIn, with two, were the only companies with more than one representative in the Top 50 Executives on Social Media

“Despite an increase in the number of executives on social media – and some truly stellar social media presences – quality among these accounts still varies greatly, and there are large opportunities for improvement,” said Ricci.

The report includes an inside look at the top five executives, including detailed analyses of what they are doing right on social media.

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