Social Media Essential Skills for Marketing and PR Jobs
The CMO Club polls its members each week and the most recent question put to the group was:
What is your top priority for hiring?
Social Marketing was at the top of the list with 39.2% with comments such as “The biggest gap I have is Social Marketing expertise. We all know the basics, it’s applying new social networking capabilities to our marketing mix.” and “A few years back Industry expertise mattered more. Now it’s the science of customer engagement. I can always teach them about the industry.”
When asked what they’d do differently in 2010, 64 % said they planned to increase social media spending, and 72% of those CMOs not currently overseeing social media initiatives planned to create some.
Pete Krainik, founder of the CMO Club, even suggested this will be the year that CMOs failing to grasp social media will be fired.
Krainik predicts that social media will be an enterprise-wide mainstay by 2011, but it seems like most marketers are still trying to wrap their heads around it all.
Are we seeing a similar trend in PR? Is your job at risk if you don’t master social media skills this year? The PRSA Counselors Academy has this on their top 3 items for PR professionals in 2010. The PR And Social Media report from Econsultancy tells us that only 13% of companies are ‘very satisfied’ with the level of social media service they get from their PR agency.
A quick Twitter poll of PR and Communication professionals shows that about 70% of them think that PR professionals and PR agencies that don’t master social media will lose out.
PR executive recruitment specialists report that they are seeing the same trend as the CMO Club – social media skill is the number one requirement for landing a PR job today. (Yest most PR schools don’t teach it.)
And just knowing how to put up a Fscebook page or a Twitter feed is not enough. You have to know how to implement the right social actions for your situation and blend them seamlessly into your PR campaigns. You have to be able to build a community and actually engage with them – not just use social media as another broadcast medium
What can you do to improve your social media skills?
- Learn how to plan a social media strategy
- Attend the Social Media Club meetings in your area
- Follow PR thought leaders on Twitter:
- Subscribe to this blog
What would you advise PR people to do to improve their skills?
Image Credit: Haiwa 4126 Flickr
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“A few years back Industry expertise mattered more. Now it’s the science of customer engagement. I can always teach them about the industry.” Sad to know that my 15 years of experience is somewhat meaningless now. You don’t teach an industry. Marketing is a process. It’s also something that changes all the time. I’m not sure how you teach that. Marketers are struggling with SM because ROI needs to be attached to everything to justify their existence. If various forms of measurement can be used to deem success, then it may get easier for marketers.
PR, on the other hand, has a much greater challenge in how information is disseminated. In this day and age of 24/7 news cycles and citizen reporters, PR has a much harder time being heard. How you communicate with reporters, authentically get your brand message across, even deliver a media alert, have all changed.
Above all else, there is one thing that has not changed: relationships. The most important part of social media is the social part.
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Researching for a work shop and debate articles here in Onsala, Sweden, I am so happy I found your site! Thanks for clear messages! I will be back for sure!
Victoria Ahlén, business developer with an focus on social media strategy
Tak Victoria,
If you need help or material for the workshop let me know. Have you seen my social media strategy whitepaper?
http://expansionplus.com/impr/social-media.html
Sal
Theresa,
You’re right – relationships always mattered. But we are hearing from Marketing and PR recruiters and HR people that the biggest issue they have is finding someone who knows both sides – marketing or PR strategy and social media. Training and coaching seems to be the key
Great article! I plan to use it in my healthcare marketing class this semester.
Janice Frates, Professor
Health Care Administration Dept.
California State University Long Beach
Tks Janice
If you’d like a guest lecturer I’d be happy to come down. I spent a whole day at Cal State Fullerton last semester.
This is great information and #’s for us to use. I am bookmarking this posting for sure. Thank you!
Shani Sammons
http://www.shanisammons.com
Thanks Shari
My resolution for 2010 is to blog more so you’ll find lots here to read.
I think it’s great thoughts for those who want to marketing his stuffs..!!
Nice article.
I’ll be back for sure