On Friday a short post was published on media bistro saying that it’s shocking that CMOs have never heard of twitter ( at the ANA Conference, Association of National Advertisers). Is it really that shocking? I mean most people have never heard of twitter let alone know how to use it.
The post went on to say:
“The conference attendees were asked: Which social network do you consider for your marketing campaigns? Results:
YouTube
and a couple of other social networks were listed
Yet, more than 50% of attendees replied “NONE of the above”
Facebook received 18%
YouTube got about 20% of the votes
Twitter? Just 3%!”
Yes these responses are pathetic, but shocking? not so much. Most of the CMOs out there are traditonal marketers who have been in the field for years, they didn’t grow up with youtube, twitter, facebook, or social networking. I know what you’re thinking, they are marketers and they need to stay on top of their game…true, but why don’t we help them out by asking different questions?
If I asked you if optimized your site map priorities, created a robots.txt file, researched your co-occurrences, and triangulated your keywords you would probably look at me like I’m crazy right? But if I asked you “do you want to get found better in search engines?” then all of a sudden things make sense right?
So instead of asking the CMOs and other executives out there if they have heard of twitter or if they are using facebook to create fan pages why don’t we ask them the following:
- Is it important for your organization to interact with its users/customers?
- Is it important for your organization to find an efficient cost effective method of interacting with your customers/users?
- Is it important for your organization to receive direct feedback from your customers/users?
- Is it important for your organization to allow for brand evangelism from your users/customers?
- Is it important for your organization to have an online presence?
Of course there are probably tons of other questions you can think of, the point is that most CMOs and executives would say yes to all of the above, THEN you can begin to educate them and show them the tools to make it happen, such as twitter.
If you’re going to speak to a senior level executive (especially a marketing one) make sure you speak on their terms not yours, that way things will make a lot more sense 🙂
What other questions would you ask a CMO or company executive?
Thanks for reading and thanks for your time!
Good point…rather than looking at them with an “are you serious?!” look, let's rephrase and help them understand what they may be missing out on.
I think a lot of times the tech industry feels elite to the rest of the world and doesn't understand when everyone else doesn't “get it”. We should be here to help people, not mock them.
hey tim,
yep, a lot of the tech folks forget they they live in a bubble, most people in the world have no idea what twitter is and have no idea how to use social media platforms to market their product services. In fact most tech people out there dont even know how to use social media to market themselves.
i think it makes complete sense that execs have never heard of or know how to use these platforms.
thanks for reading and commenting tim!
Good point…rather than looking at them with an “are you serious?!” look, let's rephrase and help them understand what they may be missing out on.
I think a lot of times the tech industry feels elite to the rest of the world and doesn't understand when everyone else doesn't “get it”. We should be here to help people, not mock them.
hey tim,
yep, a lot of the tech folks forget they they live in a bubble, most people in the world have no idea what twitter is and have no idea how to use social media platforms to market their product services. In fact most tech people out there dont even know how to use social media to market themselves.
i think it makes complete sense that execs have never heard of or know how to use these platforms.
thanks for reading and commenting tim!