Thrudigital

Mary Beth Kemp at Forrestor Research recently published her notes from a recent talk entitled “What Role for the CMO in Social? The Research.” Its a great summary of the various practical ways that CMO’s in companies can use social media. As I read the article, I realised that over the last 2 years, thrudigital has helped organisations (some huge multinationals, and some small businesses)  to do every single one of these.

When prospective clients ask what we can do, sometimes its difficult to explain, because “social media” brings different value to different parts of the organisation. For the PR team, it might be reducing the cost of traditional PR by engaging leading bloggers. For the customer service team it might be about finding out the problems customers are having with your products. For the product team, it might be about bringing 1000 customers together in a private community to co-create a new product design. For the executive team, it might be about delivering high-level reports giving insight on the competitive positioning of the organisation in the minds of the masses. And I could go on…

Social media is not a tool, and it is not even a new playground. Often its not “social”, and sometimes it hardly involves “media”. It is not a hat that one person in the organisation can wear, and take off when they go home. Its a term that is pathetically indefinable, and certainly overused. But as many organisations are starting to find out, this new landscape, where messages are not broadcast but conversational by default, where the market is comprised of millions of publishers not just consumers, where networks and groups are almost instantly creating, and dissolved, around topics both mainstream and niche.

What it requires from organisations is not a new campaign, but change. Every social media project we have been involved in has required a change of process, structure, or behaviour by the organisation in order to be most effective. Yes, its difficult. But companies all over the world are managing it.

Exciting times.