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Last week PRWeek, one of the leading public relations publications, released a “power list” of the top 25 professional communicators.

The companies represented by the 25 were spread across a wide range of industries – from General Electric to IBM to Waggener Edstrom Worldwide. They are all major players in their respective industries, and each undoubtedly has a team or two (or more) of marketers, public relations experts and communication specialists.

But with titles like Vice President of Communication, Ford Motor Company, you’d think Mr. Ray Day might like to stay plugged in to what was being said about the company.

Right?

Well I did some research and found that a disturbingly low percentage of the “top 25 communicators” had a presence on Twitter. [Note: I’m referring to a visible presence. They may well have a username that isn’t easily searchable by a name or company search]

In fact, only eight percent (that’s two people) on PRWeek’s list were on Twitter. An astounding 44 percent of the companies that these people represented weren’t on Twitter either!

Maybe I’m simply too “new-school”, but I was very surprised to not find FedEx on the microblogging site. It seems to me like that would be a great avenue to connect with clients…you know – field complaints, handle inquiries, and direct traffic to the homepage?

So without further ado, I give you the “25 top communicators” as rated by PRWeek:

So why is that? Is it because these C-level executives are simply too busy to spend time on Twitter? Is it because they have squadrons of employees who manage the accounts for them?

Or is it because no one on the list is under the age of 35?

There’s no denying that younger demographics tend to be early adopters of new social networks much sooner than their older counterparts.

After all, Quantcast statistics show that the main age demographic for Twitter users is 18-34. But maybe it’s more than that.

I’m not suggesting that the people on this list aren’t excellent at their jobs. A full-scale marketing/PR/communications plan for a company the size of JPMorgan or Johnson and Johnson goes far, far beyond little ‘ol Twitter.

But Twitter has proven itself to be a valuable listening tool for companies who DO adopt the service. I’ve read a lot of positive news about @SouthwestAir and how they’ve managed customer relations on Twitter. Why can’t McDonald’s do the same?

In fact, I would think McDonald’s would be a Twitter power user by now – tweeting to its followers about new meal deals, sharing it’s latest advertising videos on YouTube, and directing traffic to its homepage.

At the very least, I would think Jack Daly would want to keep an open channel for communication on Twitter and listen to what was being said.

The same goes for companies like Johnson and Johnson. They could monitor trends about people complaining about cold and flu symptoms. “What are people saying about how they feel?” “How can we use this information to make better products, better advertising and a better company?”

Granted, that shouldn’t fall on Ray Jordan to actively monitor what Sally SoreNose is saying on a daily basis – but SOMEONE should be listening!

As far as the lack of presence on Twitter for these executives…It’s my opinion that they should have an account (that is easily found) if ONLY because someone may be looking for them someday and have a question about the company.

At the very least, they would be able to redirect the person to the proper information source.

Who knows…maybe Pfizer would want to monitor tweets like this one to gauge public sentiment. (By the way - congratulations to Ford, GE, Microsoft, Pepsi, APCO Worldwide and Waggener Edstrom. They’re the only ones who were following a respectable number in proportion to their followers.)

Or maybe not. If it were my communications strategy, I’d at least have someone listening in.

By: Zack S.