Only 20% of Fortune 100 CMOs are Social: BusinessNext Social Study Finds

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 29, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- BusinessNext Social, the world's premier social business conference, today announced the results of a study showing that only one in five CMOs on the Fortune 100 list are active participants in public social networks[i].  The members of the list –  compiled in the BusinessNext Social Top 20 Most Social CMOs in the Fortune 100 – have social credentials demonstrating that they understand what it takes to grow and influence their own networks by using new strategies, cutting-edge social media and mobile technologies and compelling content marketing to build highly adaptive, high performance social businesses.

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The study was inspired by the increasing focus businesses are placing on social, and the leadership role marketing is taking in managing social media activities.  A recent study by The CMO Survey predicts that social media spending as a percent of rising marketing budgets is expected to increase from 7.6 to 18.8 percent over the next 5 years; Gartner Research predicts the CMO will spend more on IT than the CIO by 2017. [ii][iii]

The senior-most marketing executives recognized for leading social by example include: 

1. General Electric Company's Beth Comstock (@bethcomstock,  http://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethjcomstock), CMO and Senior Vice President
2. Google, Inc.'s Nikesh Arora (@nikesharora), Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer
3. Apple, Inc.'s Philip Schiller (@pschiller), Senior Vice President, Worldwide Product Marketing
4. IBM's Jon C. Iwata (@coastw, www.linkedin.com/pub/jon-iwata/4/b92/abb), Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications
5. SAP's Jonathan Becher (@jbecher, http://www.linkedin.com/in/jbecher), CMO
6. Dell's Karen Quintos (@KarenDellCMO, www.linkedin.com/pub/karen-quintos/1/661/158), CMO
7. Exxon Mobil Corporation's Ken Cohen (@ken_cohen) Vice President of Public and Government Affairs
8. Microsoft's Chris Capossela (@chriscapossela, http://www.linkedin.com/pub/chris-capossela/1/995/7a9), CMO
9. Cisco Systems' Blair Christie (@BlairChristie, http://www.linkedin.com/pub/blair-christie/4/a55/5a1), Senior Vice President and CMO, Government Affairs,
10. Raytheon's Pam Wickham ( @PamWickham1, http://www.linkedin.com/pub/pam-wickham/42/915/363) Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Communications

The entire list of The 20 Most Social CMOs can be found on the BusinessNext Social Blog.

While not all CMOs are social in every network, they rank high on a BusinessNext-developed formula that provides a holistic measure of the social impact of individual CMOs.  That formula takes into account the number of Twitter followers, retweet frequency, social engagement frequency, social mentions, KRED scores, Klout scores, and related factors.  Weights were assigned to each factor to produce the final rankings.[iv]

Remarkably, CMO resistance to becoming more social remains formidable.  While the top three have a combined Twitter following of nearly 94,000, an astounding 76% of CMOs have no Twitter following whatsoever.  Only 15 executives have at least 100 subscribers on Facebook, and just 12 have Klout scores greater than 30.  Compared to a 2011 CMO study, social CMOs have extended their social reach, while the majority have remained on the sidelines.[v]

"Ironically, these 100 CMOs are charged with leading social initiatives for the world's largest enterprises, yet our analysis shows that the majority have relatively little experience building influencer communities. That is a major stumbling block, according to CMOs and social business experts we have consulted," said Mark Fidelman, Conference Director at BusinessNext Social and lead author of the analysis. "The consensus among the people who top our list is that CMOs need firsthand experience building online communities to connect with customers and foster loyalty, trust and engagement."

Fidelman believes that for those looking to be successful and relevant in any industry where communications and influence are key factors, nurturing a large network will not only be an advantage, it will soon become an executive requirement.

About BusinessNext Social
BusinessNext Social is the world's premier conference for social business, marketing and IT executives to learn how to capture the full power of social -- inside the organization and out.  Thousands of attendees are coming from across the globe to learn from and network with an outstanding group of social media and social business luminaries, influencers and IT vendors that have experienced firsthand how to revolutionize their companies and rapidly evolve into high performance social enterprises with engaged online communities.  BusinessNext is presented by BlogWorld, the leading new media events company, in conjunction with New Media Expo (NMX). More information and conference registration is available at:  http://www.biznextlive.com

Press Contact:
Jenna Dobkin
Publicist, BusinessNext Social
Owner, Dobkin Communications
[email protected]
415.652.2185 – Mobile; Twitter:  @JennaSD

[i] When a company did not have a CMO, we used the head of communications or marketing, instead.

[ii] Source: http://cmosurvey.org/blog/six-reasons-marketing-budgets-are-on-the-rise/

[iii] Source:  http://www.zdnet.com/research-the-devalued-future-of-it-in-a-marketing-world-7000003989/

[iv] The methodology is detailed in Mark Fidelman's Socialized!  How the World's Most Successful Businesses Harness the Power of Social.

[v] Source:  http://www.businessinsider.com/the-fortune-100-league-of-extraordinarily-social-cmos-infographic-2011-3

SOURCE BusinessNext Social