Study reveals how CEOs become social media celebrities

Hoboken, N.J., September 24, 2025 — A new study published in the Journal of Management Studies uncovers how top executives rise to celebrity status on social media — and why it matters for business and beyond. 

Drawing on more than a decade of data from 320 CEOs of S&P 1500 companies with personal accounts on X (formerly Twitter), researchers analyzed over 250,000 CEO posts and 1.6 million user mentions of those CEOs. They found that CEOs who post more often, use a positive tone, and discuss a variety of topics are significantly more likely to receive high levels of both attention and positive emotional responses from online audiences — leading to what the authors deem “CEO social media celebrities.” By contrast, posting content that is highly unique compared to peer CEOs did not help — and sometimes even backfired. 

Social media enables CEOs to form what are known as parasocial relationships with their audiences, in which followers develop strong emotional bonds with public figures whose posts they appreciate, even if these connections are largely one-way and non-reciprocal, the study notes. Titled The Power of Posting: An Examination of CEO Social Media Celebrity, it was co-authored by Ann Mooney Murphy, Stevens Professor of Strategic Management, Ruixiang Song of University of Tennessee and Yangyang Zhang of Loyola Marymount University.  

The findings carry broad implications for corporate leaders, companies, and stakeholders. Social media has created a new pathway for achieving CEO celebrity that is very different from the traditional media-driven route. Indeed, the research indicates that, unlike mainstream media, where journalists decide which CEOs make headlines, social media audiences reward CEOs who show up consistently, positively, and in diverse ways. And these rewards extend well beyond the boundaries of social media, which has been linked to improvements in the reputation of CEOs and their firms as well as for the CEO’s compensation.  

With nearly five billion people using social media, the stakes for CEOs have never been higher. As Dr. Murphy notes, “social media has opened the door for CEOs to build their own celebrity status, independent of the traditional media gatekeepers. Our study shows that consistency, positivity, and variety are what really capture online audience’s attention and admiration.”  

Importantly, the study also finds that CEOs who achieve this social media celebrity are more likely to later gain visibility in traditional media, amplifying their reach and influence. Dr. Murphy emphasizes, “And those wins often don’t just stay online: social media celebrity usually leads to a more mainstream celebrity that can boost a CEO’s reputation, raise their company’s profile, and even augment their pay.” 

About Stevens Institute of Technology 

Stevens is a premier, private research university situated in Hoboken, New Jersey. Since our founding in 1870, technological innovation has been the hallmark of Stevens’ education and research. Within the university’s three schools and one college, more than 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students collaborate closely with faculty in an interdisciplinary, student-centric, entrepreneurial environment. Academic and research programs spanning business, computing, engineering, the arts and other disciplines actively advance the frontiers of science and leverage technology to confront our most pressing global challenges. The university continues to be consistently ranked among the nation’s leaders in career services, post-graduation salaries of alumni and return on tuition investment. 

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