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RE: Is it time for a Chief Social Media Officer?
Katherine Canipelli 17th Apr 2009
I vote NO.

Not that social marketing strategies don't need top level (C-level or otherwise) support; they absolutely do or they fail miserably. But as your list of internal stakeholders suggests, social marketing is inherently a cross-functional, enterprise-wide. The social key is reaching peers--niches by function and expertise--particularly for B2B applications.

Here's a parallel to think about. 20 years ago, the Quality movement attracted experienced strategic-oriented senior managers to C-level positions with titles like Chief Quality Officer, with an aim to transform companies across functions. 90% of the effort and value they delivered was at the front end--getting things started. Then the role gradually disappeared because, #1) once trainers got trained and all employees got trained, this CQO's value was diffused (by design), #2) Quality morphed into more specific process methodologies better managed at the operating group level. The fundamental problem is that leadership of cross-functional initiative are be definition STAFF positions (even with a C- attached) while the organizational power resides with LINE positions. "Quality" initiatives today are managed within line groups, facilitated across the enterprise via technology. Internally, it's a social management context.

So, for "social" strategies to succeed, they need top-down commitment to get started, then bottom-up contributions to work, then cross-organization assimilation to be sustainable. Given this, it may be that the initial front-end development that your "CSMO" might be needed for would best be handled by an executive level contract employee or hands-on consultant. The metrics would be clear from the start; the job, however, would have a terminal point.

Katherine Ventres Canipelli
Twitter @kvcanipelli
Blog www.marketingfolio.com/the-industrious-marketer
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