Twitter not done in Business.

It sounds incredible. Social media are the hot topic to communicate with customers, friends and business relations. However, the economic influential members of our society, hardly use twitter according to the latest research by the Volkskrant.

The Dutch elite hardly uses twitter. Even though they often have twitter accounts, rarely they use it to connect with others. Companies themselves are active on the social media, but these accounts are controlled by employees of the organisation. Thus only formal contacts are established.

We have to differentiate between interaction and influence. For instance, Mark Zuckerberg does have a twitter account but rarely places any tweets. But when he tweets, this is re-tweeted thousands of times. This is also applicable for the Dutch right wind parliaments member Geert Wilders. He does not interact at all with his followers, but he does have thousands of them, who, without hesitation, re-tweet all of his tweets.

The adoption of twitter as mean of communication, apparently, strongly depends on the position of the person in society, with the occasional exception such as Femke Halsema. She is known as Twitter Queen, with as well a lot of interaction with her followers and a strong influence in Dutch society. So it is more the sub elite or common man that uses twitter actively.

The elite is probably scared of the side effects of Twitter. Each tweet can lead to unexpected results. This restraint prevents that a better and higher level of trust can be achieved between governance directors and civilians. Because twitter is not only a good opportunity to share your daily affairs, but can also be used to explain, interpret the actual news. But also to share those things that are going well and bring nuance to debates. It is about time for the elite to pick up on social media.