Simon Mainwaring

We First provides consulting and training to help companies tell the story of their good work in ways that build their business

August 27, 2012

How social media turns the smartest CMO’s into Chief Customer Advocates

Written By Simon Mainwaring

by

If there is one sure fire way to leverage social media data in the service of your company, it’s to engage that data to better serve your customers. This fact is not lost on CMO’s who, according to the survey by the CMO Club fund the number one use of social data by CMO’s is now brand management. By brand management they mean using that data to understanding and to respond to their customers needs more effectively driving sales and enhancing their reputation

This great new infographic from visual.ly and the CMO Club brings this into dramatic relief. It’s notable that sales is a distant second because, while bottom line profits are important, effective reputation management is equally important to the long term survival of your company.

The data below is also instructive as it reveals exactly what CMO’s are looking for in social data. Principally trends in consumer behavior, identifying exactly who their customers are, how consumer feel about your brand, an what individuals or groups are driving sales.

The same benefits are reflected in CMO’s confidence in the core ROI (Return on Investment) of social media data with over 80% feeling confident that it impacts brands awareness and consumer loyalty.

Given the data above there are five concrete steps every Chief Marketing Officer (no matter what size the company is), can take:

1. Clearly define your brand and its story to enable consumers to pass that story on to others.

2. Identify, engage and reward these brand ambassadors to encourage more sharing.

3. Monitor conversations about your brand on key social media channels to identify areas to improve on, products or services to develop, or consumer complaints to address.

4. Train employees and customer service specialists to reflect the brand’s values in all communications.

5. Constantly monitor consumer behavior to identify new tolls and behavior to effectively  track to manage the brand’s reputation.

For more on how CMO’s use social media to build their brand, click here.

Subscribe to We First on Youtube, Facebook, Google+ and connect with me: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Google+