CMOs: We’re Not Prepared For Social Media

New IBM research drawing from 1,700 chief marketing officers from 64 countries and 19 industries shows that while top marketing execs are well aware of the major shift taking place via social media, a majority of them are unprepared to adress the new social media world.

According to the IBM Global CMO Study, while 56 percent of CMOs view social media as a key engagement channel, only 26 percent are tracking blogs, 42 percent are tracking third party reviews and 48 percent are tracking consumer reviews to help shape their marketing strategies.

In addition, nearly two-thirds of CMOs think return on marketing investment will be the primary measure of their effectiveness by 2015. However, only half feel sufficiently prepared to provide hard numbers.

While social return on investment proves to be challenging, the CMOs surveyed also aren’t bullish on investing in their own professional development in this area. When asked which attributes they will need to be personally successful over the next three to five years, only 28 percent said technological competence, 25 percent said social media expertise and 16 percent said financial acumen.

As the above chart shows, a vast majority of CMOs are still relying on what some may call “traditional” sources of data when it comes product and strategy decisions.

Lastly, there is also an implied pitch for IBM in the research release. IBM estimated that more than 90 percent of all real-time information being created today is unstructured, which is an area they’ve been investing in to help companies make sense of the data.

More information can be found on IBM’s website.

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