With Social Media used by 40% of the Worlds Population ... So Where is Your CEO?

I recall speaking at an event as I told the story of how my then girlfriend and I got trapped at a snow bound Heathrow.  As you can imagine that will all flights cancelled a lack of taxis Heathrow nearly turned into a riot.  What did Heathrow do?  They actually switched off the information boards.

But us, we were a sea of calm.  Why because our airline (BMI in those days) , provided all the information on Twitter, in fact as their was a human on the end of the Twitter feed, we built a good relationship.  In the end, I took charge of the lounge and made the announcements and gave advice.  (What do you say to somebody on a flight from Russia that has used London as a stop over).  Before, we too made our exit and left.

This was December 2010.

We never did get to Ethiopia.

That was 7 years ago, what has changed?  Societies use of Social Media has risen, but CEOs (and the rest of the C-Suite) seem reluctant or even resist being visible or talking with their customers.  But for how much longer?  Does 50% or 60% of the world's population need to be on social, sorry but it's going away, maybe it's time to make the jump?