78 percent of top PR people don’t use Twitter

An interesting statistic has been uncovered by Adam Clyne in his PR Week blog, that shows only 22% of PR Week’s Power 100 list actively use Twitter. Clyne suggests five possible reasons for this:

1. The PR Industry is out of touch – and has been slow to embrace social media.

2. Social media is not the remit of the PR industry and is the realm of digital agencies.

3. The top 100 is more likely to consist of ‘older’ practitioners and business leaders – whose expertise lie in traditional media and may not have time to Tweet – but their staff may be fully engaged in social media and their companies are running effective campaigns.

4. Twitter is not for everyone.

5. Twitter may not be that important.

My view is that 1 & 3 are the most accurate and related. The profile of most PR agency CEOs suggests Twitter is something their kids are more likely to use than they themselves.

I remember talking to the MD of a sizeable advertising agency a couple of years ago and he seemed almost quite proud to state that he wasn’t interested in Facebook, didn’t use it. The implication was that he considered himself too senior to have to worry about it. The same is probably true of many PR agency CEOs