Everyone Thinks He Can Be a Social-Media Marketer

From the more things change, the more they stay the same department:

At Ad Age's 2004 New York Advertising Week panel, "Money Talks: The view from the CMO's office," Ad Age editor-moderator Scott Donaton noted that the average tenure of a chief marketing officer is 22.9 months -- half that of the average CEO.

Why is marketing so expendable? Said Paul Guyardo, then Kmart's CMO: "We're an easy target. Everybody likes to think they're a marketer and can do our job. It's easier to get rid of us than to adjust the real problems affecting sales."

Amen.

Well, here we are five years later, and a CMO's job has gotten no easier. Today the pressure is on CMOs to get the company involved in social media. There's a lot of social-media GMOOT -- "Get me one of those" -- in boardrooms across the globe.

The problem is: Social media is harder than it looks and too often everyone thinks he or she can be a social-media expert. But this is a misnomer, much like the one Guyardo noted five years ago. After all, it's easier to throw up a Twitter account or Facebook page than to really effect change and transformation within an organization.

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B.L. Ochman is a marketing strategist and blogger and can be found Twittering, at WhatsNextOnline.com or with her newest venture, Pawfun.com.