Social media is good for your career

by Robin Grant in News on 27 January 2009 at 14:33 Google+

Advertising Age reports on a study of 400 CMOs (that’s Marketing Directors in English):

Only 16% of respondents said their companies have any routine system in place for monitoring what people are saying about them or their brands online.

The survey comes, however, as big marketers are paying growing attention to monitoring and leveraging social media. Procter & Gamble has a Social Media Lab that’s about 18 months old, and Unilever last month hosted a word-of-mouth summit at its US headquarters dedicated largely to understanding how social media affect its brands.

Another big marketer, Johnson & Johnson, became acutely aware of the trouble social media can cause when complaints on the microblogging site Twitter led it to pull the plug on an ad campaign for Motrin in November.

One problem for marketing executives is that they’re not clearly in charge now of managing the customer experience, customer loyalty or social media today, given that public-relations, sales, consumer-affairs and research-and-development departments all have a stake in those areas now.

Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council, said marketing should take the lead in overseeing the customer experience and satisfaction. And he said addressing deficiencies in tracking and analyzing consumer feedback and buzz may be the key way CMOs can stake a claim to leadership.

This accurately reflects reality as we experience it – we work into both Marketing and Corporate Communications Directors on different clients. Although the most effective engagements tend to be when we’re working with a combination of the Marketing, PR, Customer Service and Research departments, there’s clearly a land grab in progress. It’s those that commission us whose careers’ are seeming to benefit – and not just for the mercenary reasons the CMO council gives, but because they’re the ones doing the valuable learning as social media changes the face of business for ever…

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  • http://twitter.com/tparish/statuses/1152290826 tparish (Tom Parish)

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    Social media is good for your career / we are social [link to post]

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  • http://twitter.com/Danielaarens/statuses/1152529864 Danielaarens (Danielaarens)

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    Only 16% of interviewed companies say they have a system for monitoring what people say about their brands online [link to post]

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  • http://www.radian6.com Marcel LeBrun

    I have observed many of the same things. It is quite common to find that a brand's foray into listening & engagement has started at the grass roots level by a couple of passionate employees who believe in the importance of listening & connecting with customers online. People start to notice and say good things about the brand's engagement efforts which goes a long way to raising the prominence of these initial brand advocates (employees). These employees often migrate to exciting leadership roles as the company gets more intentional about social media listening & responding to customers, influencers, etc.

  • http://www.radian6.com Marcel LeBrun

    I have observed many of the same things. It is quite common to find that a brand's foray into listening & engagement has started at the grass roots level by a couple of passionate employees who believe in the importance of listening & connecting with customers online. People start to notice and say good things about the brand's engagement efforts which goes a long way to raising the prominence of these initial brand advocates (employees). These employees often migrate to exciting leadership roles as the company gets more intentional about social media listening & responding to customers, influencers, etc.

  • http://twitter.com/carlahenny/statuses/1154825067 carlahenny (carla m. lee henny)

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    Social media is good for your career [link to post]

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  • http://twitter.com/AlanSee/statuses/1155106052 AlanSee (Alan See)

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    Social media is good for your career [link to post]

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  • http://twitter.com/markvanbaale/statuses/1155748859 markvanbaale (Mark Van Baale)

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    For those who say social media is an obstacle in your career, think again: [link to post]

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  • http://twitter.com/heas/statuses/1169382494 heas (Henrik Åsén)

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    Social media is good for your career (via Google Reader) [link to post]

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  • http://twitter.com/peter_einarsson/statuses/1170453961 peter_einarsson (Peter Einarsson, PEI)

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    del.icio.us: Social media is good for your career / we are social [link to post]

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    [...] – which we agree with. Social media crosses all organisational boundaries, and as we said back in January, the most effective engagements tend to be when we’re working with a combination of the [...]

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    [...] was reminded of Sir Cloudesley’s fate when reading Robin Grant’s latest blog, in which he quotes a new report, which claims that only 16% of US companies [...]