Forbes Study: CMOs More Bullish on Social Media than Apps

During a recent meeting with Forbes they shared with me a summary of their recent survey of Chief Marketing Officers (embedded below). There are two notable trends here - which Forbes isn't connecting, but I am.

First, social media is seen as the single most promising marketing vehicle amongst all respondents and those who oversee more than $5M in annual spend. Note how social media surpasses other tactics that get a lot of attention - notably mobile applications and search engine marketing.

Second, some 73% of CMOs surveyed oversee PR. I don't have the data, but I imagine this is a new trend. In the past, PR would sit in all kinds of other departments. Now it seems to be more closely aligned with marketing.

Now the Forbes study doesn't say this, but I fundamentally believe that other than placing ads, PR is in the best position to manage a business' social media endeavors. The reason is that engaging in social circles requires an understanding of psychology and also it is an uncontrolled discipline. Both of these play well to the skills of PR practitioners. If I were a CMO controlling $5M in spend with an interest in social media and I oversaw PR, I would connect these dots. I suspect that's what many are doing.

CMO Survey Results 11.16.09.pdf (2137 KB)
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Comments

[edward boches]

Couldn't agree more. PR is ideally the best discipline (presuming it's social oriented) to lead this effort. However, as everything converges, it will also call for UX, digital production, and great social creative ideas as well as the basic listen/engage/build community.

[Joseph Kingsbury, Text 100]

Steve - agreed. This speaks to the ongoing paid vs. earned media dialogue and which skillsets best align with the latter. I would just add that advertising and marketing as disciplines are relatively strong in technology as compared to PR, and technology's often the gap in the organizational skillset. That's obviously a broad stroke but the lines between all these functions will be increasingly blurry and tech savvy (not talking setting up Twitter accounts here) definitely helps.

[David Connell]

Where I work we have a strategic communications department that includes both PR and social media functions among others -- but they're split into two closely working, but separate teams with a bit of overlap. It works out well. We also have other shops who are doing social media -- it's all coordinated but lives in different areas. For a lot of organizations social media is still a "who can do it" tactic that gets assigned based on expertise rather than department.

[Ward White]

Re: Forbes survey, Role of the CMO.My comment addresses a different aspect of this survey than does Steve Rubel's original comment (which I agree with).Does this survey mean that 73% of corporate PR folk report to marketing? I think not. I see a danger that this data will be taken to mean that PR (including corporate communications) reports to marketing in 73% of U.S. companies. That would be an over-reach, as I see it, going far beyond what the data says. Note that this survey does not appear to distinguish between marketing PR and corporate communications. In many companies, corporate communications handles the company-wide communications (executive support, internal, financial and investor, corporate media relations, events management, community relations, corporate philanthropy, issues management, litigation support, etc). and marketing handles marketing PR and promotion (what Page-oriented folk tend to view as the lower-level stuff). In other words, there is not data here to say that corp com is on a downward trend or an upward trend, one way or the other.

[Tami McCarthy]

The more the CMO and the PR function are aligned, the better. I am experiencing this now in my own business, and it is exciting. My practice focuses on 3 distinct areas that help drives a brand's marketing to the next level: PR, Branding, Social Media. We find by focusing on these 3 areas, we can be a key partner for our clients. We have a keen understanding of the brand's DNA, including its marketing and communications objectives; we develop a complementing strategy that includes a combination of tactics to help the brand achieve its business goals. These tactics are, more often than not, a mix of traditional PR elements combined with Social Media initiatives and proprietary research methods. To further help our clients streamline the workflow process, we can provide content creation and development to help feed the tactical plan. Finally, we measure everything to ensure results, or whether anything along the way needs to be tweaked. It's encouraging to see the Forbes study because the more CMOs engage with PR professionals who have integrated media and marketing experience, the more inclined companies will be to engage in ways they haven't before. That can be a very powerful thing, as well as giant steps forward for the PR industry.

[Joseph Kingsbury, Text 100]

Tami – I agree with you on better alignment between CMOs and the PR function. There are some high profile examples of communications chiefs leading advertising/marketing rather than vice versa. Also, digital will accelerate the trend of merging all the functions together regardless of who leads. Put another way, what essentially distinguished the various disciplines in the past were the respective vehicles each used to reach a given audience (press release, editorial, ad buy, direct marketing, etc.) but digital and social media are increasingly used across comms, advertising and marketing. That requires coordinated and in some cases new approaches, not simply the same execution methods through a new channel.

[Marta Kagan]

Interesting data, Steve, thanks for sharing. I think it's tempting to hand the keys to social media over to PR and no doubt there is business value to be gained there, but I believe smart companies will come to recognize that social media isn't just about Public Relations. It's about internal collaboration, knowledge management, innovation, recruitment and retention, service—and yes, also marketing and PR. Let's not forget that the very nature of social media is democratic and authentic. It's a a vibrant, dynamic, multi-way conversation that isn't "owned" by anyone, but contributed to and enjoyed by many. Certainly, PR should play an active role, and as the landscape continue to evolve and shift, PR professionals should endeavor to evolve and shift with it—which means embracing social and becoming fluent in it.But I wouldn't hand over the keys to PR any more than I'd ask my PR team to take over product development or customer service. PR has an important seat at the table, but I don't see PR pros running the ship.Just my two cents ;).

[Mary Lynn Carver]

Agree completely with Ward White's comment. Most CMO's do not manage corporate PR, they may manage product PR - which generally has to work within principles, policies and strategy set up by corporate PR when promoting products. This is a very important distinction. Often the difference between winning a battle and loosing the war or put another way, selling a product but killing the company.Steve, I also agree with your perception regarding managing 'uncontrolled disciplines' --I have found it very difficult to teach marketers who are used to 'controled' vehicles to be able to plan for the unexpected in the more dynamic social media space.

[Mark Clayson]

The statistics shows the real facts

[Diane Stein]

To us it only makes sense for PR, marketing and social media to be a well thought out and coordinated strategy. Over the past year it has become increasingly common for clients to request that we work directly with their CMO and that we handle the social media aspects of their campaigns. Thanks for a great post Steve.