A CMO Guide to Social Media

This is a great detailed blog post as it displays in details and importance to success in this route. Social media's such as twitter and facebook have become great connections in understanding what is out there. It has become a use for all kinds of things not just businesses but also organizations and services that people have created and care about.

      Social Media has taken a new level to advertising and communicating products and services. It is also a great way in understanding the competition but due to competiveness is it vital to have a master marketing startegy plan.

I agree with the first two tips that not only CMO but also other digital marketing practitioners should try various social media in order to better understand it. The more you play it, the more familiar you get so that you could pay attention even to the details of its attributes. In this way you are able to manage corporate social network accout more flexibly. About getting top management on board, I think it's an important strategy for the organization to communicate with its target audience and establish corporate image. CEOs sharing their schedules, commentting on the latest event and praising employees' performance through SNS will make them more humane in the public's minds and help build a socially-responsible image. About addressing negative comments on SNS, I think practitioners cannot avoid this from happening. But if the bad comment didn't arouse much resonance, just leave it alone. Sometimes arguements or even explanations are likely to cause backfire.

I agree with many of your tips on CMOs engaging in social media. Though not a CMO myself (extraordinarly far from it, actually), I feel it's very important to see that company leaders are engaged in social media as it says a lot about the company. For example, where I work this summer for an internship, all of the sales personal are encouraged to create and maintain LinkedIn profiles so as to be accessible to current and potential clients. This also creates a visibility of the company as well as aids in networking, which is particularly important in sales.

In addition to this, maintaining a strong social media presence throughout a company can enhance your image and tout your competence as a compnay that understands digital marketing and different types of digital media. Perhaps the best tip though is to be prepared for change; the digital landscape changes so quickly and your company can be at the foreground if they can embrace ever-changing medias in new ways.

I loved this blog post because it reminded me of my summer internship in the communications department at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Andy Hetzel, the Vice President of Communications was obsessed with Twitter! He mocked me on a daily basis because I refused to have one and told me that if I was going to be in the communications field that I would need to “get with the program” and sign up for an account. (He even tweeted my first “mention” when I finally fell to the power of Twitter, welcoming me to the dark side…) He also encouraged the entire communications department to create facebook and twitter accounts, and one of the intern’s job was to create an excel spreadsheet with everyone in the department’s social media links so that we could all stay connected through social media. Another intern’s job was to teach upper management how to install Twitter and tweet from their blackberries. Andy knew that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan’s business would thrive if the faces of the company were visible to the public. That same summer, Andy hired Shannon Paul, an expert at social media to help fully develop BCBSM’s social media content strategy. She held weekly team meetings to increase everyone’s understandings about the importance of social media and how to utilize different social media structures to increase BCBSM’s brand awareness and track the public’s perception of the brand. Shannon’s job was also to track the competition’s media coverage. She introduced me to Google Alerts and other tools that kept track of our brand and the competition. I was able to see the company’s social media strategy grow from the ground up and loved being part of it. The guidelines, although I’m sure Andy has not read them but did follow them, worked very well for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan at changing their customer’s idea of the health care company and the health care industry from a monster to an actual human-like entity.

Here is an example of how Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan uses social media tools, like YouTube, to show their company's personality.

exception for those rules up there. i do think other media is important too, specially television and newspapers. spoken man is the central person who could show the image of the company either position or negative. therefore, company must pay much attention to choose the best people to represent the company. the crisis of the public relations remind me to think about that company must take some actions in advance to make sure they prepare everything they could do for it.

I feel as if the CMO must definitely be ahead of the game at all times which includes socially especially when it comes to forms of media and now days internet marketing has sky rocketed which means that they should  at all times know exactly what is going on and how to approach it on the internet. If they don't how can they manage a successful team? Yes they are very significant and will shape that company therefore when I approach my business ideas I will think about that in the hiring process when it comes to that, but as of now, I would try to focus on being that CMO for myself and I think it could definitely be a rewarding job for those in the marketing and advertising field.

CMO's need to obviously know social media and know their competition. I feel like empowering others to use social media. Not just your company but the people who actually use your product to get involved with the social media facet of your brand. This can give opportunities for coupons, discounts and many other promotions for the consumers to use. Enabling the consumer of your product to generate their social media presence is another thing CMO's should keep an eye on.

I think the one of the most importang things I've learned recently (with the help of this class) is the importance of social media in the workplace. As you mentioned, it's not enough just to have a good website for your company. If you really want to get the word out there, your business has to be willing to engage in several different mediums. Not only this, but there is a right way and a wrong way to use these mediums and it's important that many of the employees are implementing social media strategies on a regular basis, especially if they're in leadership positions and representations of the company. 

The CMO plays a major role in the overall success of a business. The content available to consumers will impact their view of a company and can ultimately effect the ever-important bottomline. The guidelines listed are all highly relevant considerations for building and maintaining and online presence. What I find most intriguing is how companies deal with negative feedback on their social media accounts. I have noticed that some major corporations take the route of ignoring and/or deleting negative feedback from their Facebook accounts. However, I have also seen an increasing number of corporates consumer sites with negative feedback that is regularly addressed by the company for other users to view. Either way, a CMO must be very intuned to their brands' position as well as the competitive climate in order to make accurate decisions that will lead to the targeted success of their campaigns.

This is really good insight on the responsibility and what to do as a CMO. I've never actually studied what it takes to be a Chief Marketing Officer and these 10 ideas were very insightful. I agree that the best way to understand social media is to actually participate in it as well. How can you advertise on Facebook or Twitter if you don't even have one yourself? By dealing with the same social media your audience deals with on a daily basis, you can get a better understanding on the inside on what works in social media and what doesn't. Also, having the people you work with on social media as well will help with more diverse understanding of the audience.  These guidelines on what it takes to be a good CMO is something I will take with me for the rest of my marketing career. It is vital to stay current with the new types of social media in this ever-changing world. 

These steps are the perfect "things to do", they serve as a crash course for CMO's who may not be familiar with the social media advertising trend. The step that grabbed my attention the most was "Develop tone and messaging for your brand in social media". All of these steps are vital but this step in particular jumped out at me because there are so many social network sites out there for companies to utilize and take full advantage of but the key is .... have a tone or even theme that is going to be conveyed through all of your sites. With an array of advertising options available, especially at a cost conscious price it's so easy to get "lost" in a sense and not allow your brand to be translated effectively. It's so different because you are not spending the $1 million dollars for :30 spot so you only have that one chance per se to get your point across to your audience has creatively as possible. These social sites allow you to be more visual, use more time and just overall convey your message more in depth so companies have to be cautious to not allow their themes and tones to get lost. 

Unfortunately some of us have still not upgraded to a smartphone.  It's on my list of things to do, but the one year left on my current phone contract is prohibiting me from doing this right now.  Along with the internet, cell phones have become an important tool for business, as well as consumers.  Things are easily accessible for people to check, whether it be your email or the stock markets.  Along with the rest of these ideas being very important, I feel as if the content on a website is the most important point both for companies and consumers.  Utilizing the internet and different forms of social media to advertise and market for a company have become very important, because this has lead to how many people can be reached, along with the different types of specified consumer niches.  

These are excellent guidelines to becoming an effective CMO. The part about searching your company on a smartphone provoked me to do just that for the company I work for. I was shocked to see how static and ineffectual the site existed from a mobile platform. Being that I work for a hotel, I believe it's important that the company creates better mobile solutions or it will be heavily disadvantaged against competitors. It is important to understand and utilize the mobile smartphone market, as it is set to outpace PCs. I also liked the tip on establishing tone and messaging for your brand. I believe that is an important concept for any form of marketing. Being singular in tone and message can help a brand succinctly communicate with its followers, and it also helps the people working to deliver that communication.

I think your first bullet point is really important, try social media in order to better understand it. You can talk about something and know about something but in order to fully understand you would have to try it. For example, you can talk about and know all the information to learn how to ride a bike, but just because you know all the information to know how to ride a bike, doesn't exactly mean you know how to ride a bike. So yes, you can know all the information about the socia media, but in order to fully understand how it works, and you can't find out what it's all about until you experienced it for yourself. My advice I would give a CMO is pulling out the smartphone and search for their company. I think CMO needs to know what their site looks like on a mobile, and if it's mobile friendly or a mobile version of their site so it's easier to access and browse.

A Chief Marketing Officier is indeed a very important position held in a company.  The CMO can become one of the biggest assests to a company, if they perform well under this job title.  The larger picture i think that is vital to take from this 'criteria' to be a successful CMO, is that a CMO can make it for break it for a company.  A CMO puts themselves responsible for the image and portrayal of a company through the social media tools used to respresent them.  From blogs to company webisites or twitters, a CMO's responsibility for the company's social image is huge, especially in today's media based world.  One of my favorite brand's, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, has a CMO who does a very nice job.  They have covered all aspects of social media: blogs, twitter, facebook, google ranking, company websites.  By being prevelant in all sectors, if a user searches for a Martha Stewart blog or twitter, they will find one directly from the source, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.  This is important because the company is able to the be the main provider of information on their company and can therefore be more in control of the company's image.  CMO has paid off for them and will increasingly, i think, become more vital and important to small and large companies alike. 

It is so true you must have some understanding of what social media is about to understand it's usefulness. You can completely miss the importance of social media if you do not appreciate it or at the very least understand how it works and the feel of it. I know there are a lot of mature professionals that may only see what they feel are drawbacks to social media, they do not understand or wish to understand the realm of communication, advertising and the socialization in general are changing. To many, social media may seem intrusive to their personal and private lives, however in reality, you can be in control of the information available about you, because you can choose to produce what you wish to. 

It is so important to stay relevant and current in our fast paced and ever changing world. This means it is important to make good use of the brand new tools available in new media and social media. 

I am really amazed by the amount of information that you can learn from having good social media techniques. It is very important that all companies really keep track of their social media and the CMO is probably one of the most influencial employees for any company. So, I think it is important to highlight the CMO officer and their role in social media. Most companies I think do not do a good job putting their higher ups in the spotlight to answer customer complaints.I think that it is essential to make sure CMO officers have their own blogs so that they can answer to customer complaints. Customers want to feel like they are important so having important people within the company answer questions can be really beneficial for the company. I do not really think that you missed anything too important but maybe try to keep track of your competitors social media and try to improve your companies social media campaign thru competitor research.

I think this is great advice. I personally consider myself behind the curve as far as social media for my generation (but I'm getting there), so I can't imagine how far behind the middle aged old-school marketers are in many companies. I understand being skeptical of the usefulness of something you're unfamiliar with but I think your first tip is one of the best ones - to try it for yourself first! Social media marketing can be very intimidating. I remember the first time I looked at Twitter; I almost felt like I was looking at something in a foreign language between all the @'s and RT's and jumbled links. The other really good advice I think is to know your competition. Smaller businesses especially should always be looking for what other companies are doing that works and not be afraid to model their strategies accordingly. One thing I would add would be, like it's come up many times, to not just put stuff out there with social media but to monitor what OTHERS are putting out there. And to also constantly encourage feedback from customers via social media platforms!

Hustle hard in the social media enviroment. As everyday we are adding millions of new informational material online, a CMO must assess what is going on and how to relate and be apart of it! I really appreciated your thoughts “Develop tone and messaging for your brand in social media.” As an artist, I feel like I have done a great job in creating a consistent and necessary tone in my blogs, art website, and social media profiles. Also, not only is it important to know your competition but I also find it important to keep a competitive edge on your competition, while creating a relationship of dominance. Now, I’m not sure if this makes sense, but to be a company that surpasses its rivals, such information is necessary: one, what do they have that I can have better or do better and secondly, how can I make them see that I am better. This can be made possibly by driving a content rich campaign producing informed buying consumers.

I think what you've outlined here is a great guideline for those that are trying to get social media off the ground to benefit their organization. Of particular importance, I think, is doing it yourself (so you know what works and what doesn't), getting leadership on board (even just to get them to understand it, which isn't easy sometimes) and using various kinds of content  in your efforts (text, video, sound, etc.). However, there are some really special companies that are able to do the thing I dream about - they take social media away from the CMO and make it EVERYONE'S responsibility. When an organization has a well-developed and well-understood culture, everyone can be a spokesperson. Zappos does an excellent job with this -  it's really quite impressive. That culture doesn't happen over night though, but boy is it cool.

Tying in with our lesson this week, I thnk that you shouldn't be afraid to use social media to create viral campaigns. There is no better reach than these social media sites, and people post videos and pictures like crazy. If you can start a viral video campaign on Facebook or Twitter, there is a great chance that it will be spread because there are millions of connections to be made just by sharing it once, and having people pass it on. Just a thought.

I think this is a great article and look forward to reading the original. This gives CMO great insight and ideas that they can and should apply to thier company/brand. I have an internship as a Social Media and Advertising Intern and my first assignment was to build my boss's LinkedIn and Facebook pages for him. The company is not that big so unifying the tone of the company and everyones pages isn't a difficult feat. The first 4 or so bullets I consider obvious points however, someone who hasn't gone to school for this or studied it might over look the obvious (like use the media outlets). I feel as if older generations just want to hire someone, like me, to do what they don't understand for them. At least in the small businesses. 

I really enjoyed reading this article about being a CMO and what their job involves. I think that all of the guidelines that were mentioned are extremely important in running a successful campaign for a company. One thing that I feel many people tend to forget to acknowledge on a weekly or daily basis is paying close attention to your competitor's. A business should know their competitor's inside and out; as much as their own company. I believe the key point with CMO's blogging, creating a Facebook account, and Twitter account is important because a CMO I feel needs to know everything new about the social media world. Technology keeps advancing and we can not slow it down; CMO's need to be up on it. By professionals who are in this position that blog, update statuses, and tweet are the right people that are needed for a successful campaign. I enjoy browsing anything about dance and I strongly feel that any company not only a dance company needs to tweet, post on Facebook, and blog daily. After reading this article I hope that one day I can become a CMO.

I thought you made some great points. Some of the most valid were that CMO's should take an active role in many different social media vehicles to see what it feels like and be in tune with whats going on. Whether it be Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter they should know it all. Following blogger and reading the social media magazine is also huge. One thing I think that cant be emphasized enough is knowing your competition and what theyre social media marketing activities are, once you understand your competition the you can evaluate your company and make improvements accordingly. 

I really like this article, well done Derek!

I think too many times, that we forget about something or disregard it, because we have never actually done it. What I am talking about here is your first point you make with Trying Social Media to better understand it. People can talk about something from a subjective standpoint all day, but until you actually try it or step into someone else's shoes. you can fully address the issue. This reminds me alot of the popular TV show Undercover Boss. These guys are the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies but forget how to flip burgers, etc. Once they were put into situations learning new things such as with your example Derek, with actually creating your own social media outlets, your perspective will change!

I think these guidelines are great and have adapted perfectly to the digital era. I think that many companies try to stay traditional and convince themselves that traditional marketing is still all that they need even though times are changing and internet is taking over. I really like the one about pulling out your smartphone and searching your brand. It's important for people to see what consumers see when they search. I know that personally my cell phone is the one thing that I always have in my possession so a company that makes access with my phone easy will most likely grab my attention. I would tell the CMO of my favorite brand to first get a Twitter. I love following news about brands I like and feeling like i'm in the know all the time! Second, make the company accessible to consumers. Events such as a social media day or something would be beneficial, fun and informational to consumers. 

I really appreciated this blog posting due to the fact that after I graduate I will go work for my friends company and be the entire marketing/advertising team implementing internet marketing that I feel is most important in accomplishing my marketing goals for the company. As exciting as it is, I will need guidence and pointers to help keep me moving in the right direction for positive results for my efforts. All of these ideas are worth noting and implementing but the two that stood out to me or I thought were the most important were: 

1. Know your competition: It is emtremely important to know how our company is doing within the industry, as well as market share, product life cycle stage, and currently used marketing strategies. But even more important is to know all of this information about our competitors as they are in the same industry and have the same or closely related target market. Staying innovative while not suffering loss from any drastic marketing strategies that could have a negative branding effect. 
2. Develop a Content Marketing strategy: this is expectionally important because it is not enough to just have a website or online presence in todays modern age, but to also have consistent and easily found content as well as ways for consumers to interact with your company or business online.

As I said, all of these ideas are all very useful but I found the two I have just listed above would be the first two I will implement upon graduating and working for my friends company. 

I truly believe these are some of the best tips for a CMO at any company. With the boom of social media and it's users there seems to be no easier place to start than there. If your company uses social media sites and you don't yourself, what good is it to you if you can't make use of them and use it as a two way street to build on your companies reputation? The power of social media is incredible, although not always positive it is important to know how to respond to those negative feedbacks and keep you and your company in a reputable position to move forward with the use of social media to get yourself promoted, hopefully in a noteworthy manner (disaster plan). The best tips for a CMO in my eyes is trying it to better understand it, if anything, it won't hurt to try, it might even pull you right in to becoming the next social media expert to help expand your companies brand identity and business ventures. Next I thought that developing a tone was a great tip, if you aren't consistent in sending messages your audience will have a difficult time pinning you as reputable and valid. And lastly knowing your competition, if you don't know them in and out how are you suppose to compete against them? Know their strengths and weaknesses and use them against them and to build your position. As a CMO try new things, don't be afraid to fail and learn from your mistakes.

I find these tips for Chief Marketing Officers very effective and useful. I feel in order to reach the level of CMO one day for us students and graduates to continue to immerse ourselves into the social media and keeping up with the trends. Like the post noted, we should be using the social media itself to better understand it. How can we know what people are engaging themselves in if we ourselves don't even know how to use the technology. One thing I feel is underestimated is use of mobile technology. The development of mobile phones these days is moving at a pace that is hard to keep up with, especially with the boom in tablet technology. Social media is now accessed easily and conveniently through mobile and has proved to be something to keep up with into the future. For current CMOs, I'd give them the advice of following these tips as well as just keeping up with trends of social media. Someone new is always being developed and something is always being replaced as we have seen the rise of Facebook over MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Customers will be trending and its the CMOs and their team to keep up to meet customer needs.

These were all really great tips, the ones that stood out to me in particular were: Trying social media in order to better understand it, empowering your team to use social media, creating a disaster plan and know your competition.  I especially like the disaster plan, knowing that you can take bad feedback and turn it around into something good for your business.  I feel like every company should strive to implement this because it can only lead to success. I intern in the marketing department of Wharton Center and I see lots of this happening already and I'm sure I'll be on the lookout for more of it. 

I found this guidelines very beneficial for CMOs. Social media is a better new way for companies to communicate with their customers. For the CMOs who have never used social media, the most simple guideline is to start it and start it NOW! After you used it, you will better understand it. This first step is so easy to do, try to associate with social media as much as you can.
From this blog, I really like 3 guidelines that I think they are the most important things to consider especially if you are a CMO. First, know how to deal with bad feedback or negative comments. If you know how to respond to those comments you will be able to "change unhappy customers into the biggest fans". Second, you have to set goals for your sales funnel. Try which methods are the best fit or create the most profits, then use them repeatedly. Last, use social media to monitor your competitors. Track what position they are standing, and use these oppotunities to differentiate your company. In addition, don't forget to always use brand monitoring tools to track your products and company, and do not stop engaging in social media!!

After reading all these tips I couldn't really think of anything else that You/your company would need to do in order to become a better social media user. The tips that I enjoyed the most were the one were you got your top management to engage in social media. Not should they engage but they themselves should do part of the responding and postings. I know some celebrities have someone to respond to comments or wall post because they're to busy too do it themselves, which is fine but not all the time. It is your personal pages add some of your personal touch to it. The other tip that I enjoyed was creating a disaster plan if someone posts a negative comment or is attacking your brand or company online. This is handy because not everyone is going to like you company/brand. There are going to be people that will try to drag your companies name through the mud and the company needs to be ready for it and have a plan set in place to defuse the situation. The third point that caught my eye was the getting out your smartphone and search for your company. Social media marketing is a very visual type of marketing, if your social media is messy and unorganized or even not finished people will view you or your company has the same work ethic. Social media if your way of connecting with the consumer without seeing them face-to-face. I would like to get a retweet by one of the celebrities I follow, it shows me that they take time and read some of the tweets with their domain name in them and wil respond to them.

I feel these are very effective guidelines for a future or current CMO. I especially like the section on "Create a Social Media Disaster Plan." I so often get flustered with negative feedback on any aspect of my life. By thinking ahead and creating an action plan a company could pull the old switch-a-roo on any nasty comment and turn the commentors opinon around. If other readers held the same opinion as that commentor and then read your company's response and were simillarly impresses you could have a whole slew of new customers. One of my favorite brands iss Cambells soup. Their labeling is classic and simple and the soup is mmm...mmmm good. My advice to their CMO would be to Push the envelope and educate more of their employees on social media. They seem to be stuck in commercials and haven't really branched out. A good new media campaign would really bring the brand into the 21st century.

Pretty interesting post on a pretty interesting topic. Chief Marketing Officers is a seldom covered topic in terms of general information. The internet is argubly the most powerful tool or resource in the world. Thus making CMO's some of the most (potentially) powerful people in the world. I enjoyed the part about creating a 'disaster plan' which is something that I bet not a lot of people do or prepare for. 'Expecting the best and preparing for the worst' is a smart and efficient mindset to have when pretty much doing just about anything.

This is some great advice for CMOs and others in charge of communications/social media. As I read this, I thought about my place of work. I would consider my supervisor our CMO, but we have a very partnered approach since we're a two-person team doing the communications for a large unit. As I read the ideas, I thought about our upcoming social media launch and which of these we've included in our plan. I'm happy to say that we have most of these points covered! We're currently working on empowering our team and top management to use social media. It can be a challenge as it seems people understand it or they don't. There are still many security and privacy hesitancies as well as if it's important for work or a distraction. We're primarily working on our management since they can lead by example. I think the social media disaster plan is an essential step, and we made sure to make it known to staff that we have planned for it. People understand why two-way communication is important in our field, but they still twinge at the idea of these very public conversations and how they reflect on our unit.
There really isn't an idea I would remove from this article; they are all great points. I do hope to find ways to push the envelope at my job!

Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) have extremely important jobs, especially in today's world where the use of social media and technology is increasing fast. The extreme use of smart phones and iPads is excuse enough for hiring the best CMO your company can find. I'm sure that if there isn't already, there will soon be applications and other tools available on smart phones. So I think the point you made about pulling those out and searching your company is a fantastic idea. Most people wouldn't think to search themselves from their smart phone. Another tip that really stuck out to me was to push the envelop. Before that is possible though, you really MUST understand social media. Not only have one for your company, but create one for yourself and make sure other people from your company are also familiar with the sites. However, once you are familiar, be a trendsetter and keep on top of the newest creations.

After reading this blog post I initially related it to a company I was working for last summer as an intern.  I was in charge of updating the company's social media web sites among other things, which was fun and interesting for me because so much of my time and life involve social media and being online.  It was interesting because my boss (the one telling me what to do) had no concept of using these popular social media sites himself.  Like my parents, he was part of the baby boomer generation where most have not spent much time learning all of the new technology out there today so I wasn't surprised that he didn't have a Facebook or Twitter account.  This experience really relates to the first point you make about CMO's trying social media in order to be able to better understand it.  I think it's important that everyone in the company be familiar and comfortable navigating the social media platforms that their company is currently using, because of the ever-changing technology and huge reliance on social media and e-coomer today.

These guidelines are procedures that every CMO and correlating company should follow. A CMO's job is to make sure their brand is given appropriate attention and publicity to build and maintain brand loyalty and category dominance for their product(s). Without proper leadership and teamwork to advertise and market the company's brand, consumers will never see the brand and won't care about it. Ultimately, nothing will ever be sold and campaigns will never launch.

• Know your competition --- This is by far the best guideline to follow.

In order to be number one in the industry and dominate your product's category, the CMO must create a plan to beat out their competitors. The best way to steal dollars and consumers from your brand's competitor, you must know their strategy and where they are succeeding and failing in the industry. A CMO should create a marketing plan based off of what top-competitors are doing and add to the strategy where the competitors are failing. Consumers should never have to search to find your product's name, it should be appearing in their results when they are looking to buy something in your product category. Most importantly, your product's name needs to appear before your competitors and hopefully with a more appealing message to consumers than the competitor.

The other guideline that is a must in a CMO's marketing strategy is to develop a content marketing strategy. Building off of this idea, I think it is absolutely necessary to not only have content on your landing page that consumers are being trafficked to, but it is also necessary to have premium content. The content that is being attributed with your advertisements and your brand's product, must be fresh and exciting. Don't forget, the content is used as another selling point for the product. It must be consumer engaging and inviting -- why not allow for the content to be shareable so that consumers can share your brand with other potential consumers? Why not allow for the content to have positive comments written by actual consumers? Every aspect of your landing page is another selling point. Any company can spend the bucks to put your product at the top of a search engine, any company can spend the bucks on rich media advertisements -- it is how the company enhances the selling points after the consumer has already been driven to the website to keep the consumer engaged until the point of purchase.

It's so important that CMOs understand the importance of social media. So many people at the top level either look past it or are too confused by it to take advantage of it, and the CMO sets the standard for everyone else. Even now, it's rare for a company to spend more than 3% of their advertising budget on building thier online brand, even with the mass amount of hours people (including them) spend online every single day! I think that these are some great tips to help the guys in charge jump into online marketing, and CMOs everywhere should be sprinting to classes like this. 

These guidelines are really informative and useful. The one that I think is most forgotten is "Using your smartphone to search your company". When using a smartphone many websites are just plain useless and it seems to be overlooked by most companies. As smartphones become so popular and peoples main source of internet it is important for a company's website to be completely usable via mobile devices. I think that getting top management on board is forgotten often as well. Having one social media manager is not always enough and consumers will appreciate seeing top management joining the conversation.

This article was not only fascinating, it was also extremely useful. One of the best points made was encouraging people to join and use social networks to help their business. As many people say, "Don't knock it until you try it". This is one of those cases. Many people try to shy away from social media and are almost afraid of it when really it could be the key to unlock a business' success. Another good point that was made was the idea of creating a social media disaster plan.

There will come a day for many businesses when they hear a complaint from a customer. For this reason, it is important to always have a plan to back themselves when they hear negative feedback. As stated in the article, " knowing who responds, what they will say, and what happens next could save you money and potential embarassment." This is a very important lesson to learn when facing an unhappy customer and is an outstanding way to take a bad situation and make that person their company's biggest fan. Making these people feel important and letting them know that you hear them will help create customer loyalty and overall a better business.

This is a very helpful outline for anyone looking to start a social media strategy within their organization.  It is very broad based, so there are certain aspects that I feel are somewhat simplistic and don't necessarily fit with every business.  The list appears to me to be more applicable today for B2C than for B2B.  For example, the idea of having upper management become involved in social media, have them potentially blogging, or at least having some type of active profiles to establish "cool points."  I am not sure that "cool points" are really important in all B2B industries yet.  Granted, the world is changing, and the trend may be going in that direction, but I can't see that cool points are really necessary, or even desirable, across the board today for B2B.  I also don't believe yet that having a strategy for mobile devices is a must in all industries.  Yes, mobile devices are more prevalent around the world than computers and internet connections, but I am not convinced that the majority of those mobile devices are utilized for obtaining information in a B2B context.  For example, does the use of Foursquare help an industrial business that much?  I would completely agree that establishing the tone and message of social media engagement is very important.  But, I feel that you need to go well beyond having just the marketing team understanding and following this.  The entire company needs to understand and follow the company's guidelines for tone and message if they are representing the company in the social media space.  And, even if they are not "officially" involved as part of the company's social media team, their activities on social media may often be interpreted as being part of the organization, so the dividing line between "personal" and "professional" activity in the social media space can be very grey.  Being a CMO is a challenging job.  On one hand you have the goal of increasing sales and profit, but on the other you need to protect the brand.  Often when you focus on one of those things too much for short-sighted goals it can tend to hurt the other.

The key point "Develop a content marketing strategy" is the most important idea in this article. When looking for the social media resume outlet, I looked around for the one that would most likely get my idea across and promote that kind of person I am. I had to think about what I wanted to talk about and lead them to my other social media outlets to effectively show them that I have a sense of social marketing. This also holds true to blogs. When I first started my blog I knew that I needed to have a full idea of what I would write about. You can not have a idea and start. You need to have the whole finished idea, because then you know there won't be a change because of a flaw in the idea. 

My favorite key point is "Imitate before you innovate". Now this is the main point, but I think its important enough to be its own point. Imitating is the best way to learn social media and soon you can branch out on your own. Companies should looking at other companies like themselves and find one that has really incorporated social media into there marketing plan. Sometimes you can also just watch a company that have achieved the best marketing plan and relate it to your brand. Imitation is the best form of flattery, and it can work in your companies favor.

I thought these guidelines were very informative, I feel like my boss should read them. I have found it to be very difficult to explain Social Media and the direction I am taking with the Social Media outlets we use at my job. My boss does not have a Facebook or a Twitter account and has no plan on getting one. It's hard to break down what is going on on the accounts to someone who has no idea and just wants to know how having these sites is making him money. Social Media accounts for a business need to be a team effort and not something just ne person understands, and not something done just because its what everyone else does. These guidlines touch on everything I have tried to explain to my co workers and bosses, this was refreshing to read!

I think you covered many of the key points that Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) should be keeping in mind with regard to social media marketing. If they don't have a profile or some sort of involvement with the social media channels that they are trying to use for marketing strategies, they need to make a presence as soon as possible! In order to best understand their target market, CMOs should be interacting with them online. I also really like the point about pushing the envelope. Social media is the marketer's golden egg. There aren't very many other mediums with such low barriers of entry, low cost, and high results. The only other thing I would add to these points is to make sure that when developing tone and marketing messages that CMOs remember to be authentic and relatable. Nothing is more annoying than obvious advertising on social media platforms that I use... interruptive one-way messages are a thing of the past, they now need to integrate community and relationships.

Great conclusions! CMO should empower  his or her team to use social media after laying down basic rules of web communications. In this way, fellow workers can voluntarily express their own opinions. Plus, CMO should develop a social media disaster plan, thus, when people criticize or even attack your brand or your organization, you can be well prepared to respond. CMO should also write blog regularly to talk about his or her organization or analyze industry trend. Last but not the least, knowing your competitors is significant.

These are great tips for social media. I especially think this one is useful...

Try social media in order to better understand it.

You can't go about using a marketing vehicle for your company or advising others to do something if you don't completely understand it yourself. The best way to tackle new things like social media is to conquer it personally and then build it for your company. Having your own pages and becoming familiar with how they operate and what they can accomplish will help you get the most out of social media for your buisness.  

Develop a content marketing strategy.

Content is also very important. What good is a blog with no relevant posts? As I experienced with my own blog, I didn't have a game plan when I began my blog so now I am not keeping it up as I should. Having a plan of content before starting the page is a good idea so you don't get lost. Also, as I already mentioned, I am glad I tried out blogging for myself first because it's not going well! Better to figure it out first and work out the bugs with yourself rather than your company!