It goes without saying that digital marketers should be on social – but have you ever peeked into the accounting department to see whether they’re tweeting?
While the stereotype may be that financial professionals – CFOs especially – are too busy crunching numbers to be sending tweets or sharing links, that’s just not the case, say researchers for Leadtail Inc., a U.S.-based digital marketing agency.
In a recent report released in February 2014, they tracked the social activity of about 502 CFOs and vice-presidents of finance, mostly based in San Francisco and New York City. They aimed to find out how these CFOs build an online profile, what social networks they use, what they share about, where they get their news, and who influences them. Researchers followed these individuals for a 90-day period during the fourth quarter of 2013, gathering their data from these CFOs’ tweets.
Out of all of the social networks CFOs were using, 100 per cent of them were using Twitter, often cross-posting content from different social networks like LinkedIn and sharing them as tweets. About a quarter were on YouTube, 21 per cent were on Instagram, and 17 per cent were on Facebook. However, interestingly enough, just nine per cent were using LinkedIn.
Other social platforms, like Vine, Foursquare, Vimeo, Kickstarter, Slideshare, Pinterest, and Quora, trailed behind, with six per cent or less of these CFOs logging into these networks.
As Twitter was the clear favourite among CFOs and VPs of finance, Leadtail researchers also dug into what they were sharing through their 140-character tweets. Among the types of content shared, the most prevalent was news and lifestyle, with 38 per cent of content shared falling into this category. However, most of the news and lifestyle content still focused on business, strategy, finance, and leadership.
A close second was business and tech, coming in at 35 per cent, with just seven per cent sharing photos and videos and four per cent of tweets being more personal. Among the most popular sources of business and tech media were Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, Inc. Magazine, and WSJ Blogs – mostly financially focused, but with TechCrunch and Venture Beat also making it into the top 10.
And not surprisingly, as these are the most common sources of business and tech articles, their handles were also the most retweeted. Yet the top brands most oft-retweeted were the Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) and Forbes (@Forbes), though Sports Center (@SportsCenter) and comedy site The Onion (@TheOnion) also got some play as well.
For the full report, head on over here.