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Twitter Mocker To Tweeting Rocker
We are always curious about CMOs’ interest in social networking, and especially Twitter. From all anecdotal evidence, it seems that chief marketers are very keen on making sure social, in general, and perhaps Twitter, in particular, are part of their brands’ overall marketing scheme. What this does not mean, of course, is that CMOs are eager and regular tweeters.
Back in the end of April, I wrote in this space about “the social CMO”: “Sure, you can go around barking orders about tweeting and liking and blogging and crowdsourcing, but are you walking the talk? What does your “social footprint” look like?”
I went on to reference an article on Business Insider, “The Top 20 Social CMOs Of The Fortune 100,” which pointed out that “of the 143 CMOs and other chief communications officers in the Fortune 100, only 15 . . . have active Twitter accounts and, perhaps worse, 15% of them have ‘a net zero social footprint.’ That’s right. No social activity at all.”
Which brings us to a recent blog on Forbes by Rick Segal, president worldwide of gyro, a digital B2B agency. In “The First 200 Days Of A C-Suiter Tweeter,” Segal tells his tale of starting out as a Twitter mocker to quickly becoming a Tweeting rocker:
“Six months ago, I was soundly in the camp of those senior executives who regularly mocked the very notion of Twitter. . . .Then I found myself at a major speaking engagement in Berlin last December, where it was obvious the attendees there were very engaged in the use of Twitter during the programming. Fortunately for me, a Twitter-proficient colleague was ‘handling’ me at this conference, so I asked him to set me up, as we listened to a presenter opine on social media and customer service. Before the day ended, I had 100 followers, and social media had put the content of my thought leadership message in play in a way no other medium has done for me or my firm ever before. . . .Since then, I have posted 1500 messages to Twitter, and reviewed the so-called Twitter stream several times a day.”
Have you had an experience like this? Are you one of the marketing execs sans social footprint, or have you “seen the light,” as it were, and somehow come around to joining in the social conversation? Come over to the Discussion Forum and tell us what’s going on in your social world.
