You want to do it all.  You want to have impact.  And you want to grow your stature.  You want a raise.

You think you have to do everything.  Integrate social media.  Drive Web traffic.  Optimize spend on paid search.  Launch a video strategy.  Nurture leads.  Publish original content.  Generate new product or service ideas.  Create engaging customer experiences.  Build community.  Identify customer personas.  Our purpose at MarketingProfs is to help you.

But managing marketing is more complex, more fragmented and more varied than ever.  If you are like most people, you are now doing too much. 

The greatest challenge is to decide what not to do.  Stop!  Take time to think about what you are not going to do.  Look at each project and ask WHY.  “Why are we doing this?”  That’s the key to a “yes, go” or “no go” for all current activities.  When we ask why we are doing a project, we will find we can eliminating some things from our plate can actually be constructive.

The key to a “yes” for a marketing project must be because it contributes to the company’s cash flow in the short term or the identification of sources of cash flow in the future.  Ultimately, this is the business value of the work you do.

I recently learned at the Forrester Research Marketing Forum in Los Angeles from successful marketers who drive revenue in their organizations by being crystal clear about WHY they do the things they do:  Chris Bradshaw of Autodesk drives profitable revenue by focusing resources on winning products and channels; Marjorie Tenzer of IBM elevates the brand worldwide; Tom Boyles of Disney Parks and Resorts grows customer relationships; Mark Shepherd of InterContinental Hotels builds customer retention; and Pamela Kaufman of Nickelodeon establishes brand consistency amid the proliferation of programming.  They are effective because they are clear about why they do what they do.

Are you asking WHY? And if so, what have you eliminated as a result?

That’s what Sandy Carter told me when I had asked her about the appropriate level of executive engagement in social media.

“It’s a question of credibility,” she explained, adding that it was “almost unethical” for executives to advocate use of social media and not be engaged themselves.

For her part, Sandy started a blog in 2005 because she saw the potential and wanted to lead by example.

And lead she did. Her IBM blog, “Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) — Off the Record,” eventually garnered a million followers, making her one of the highest profile B2B bloggers on Earth. (When I mentioned that I was not yet writing for a million people, Sandy was kind enough to say, “You’ll get there!”)

Lesson 2: Ask the right questions

“The question I get asked most frequently is, ‘How do I get started on Facebook (or Twitter or Second Life, etc.)?’” Sandy said, “It’s always something very specific. ‘I saw my competitor on [fill in the blank], how do I do that?’”

She continued by saying, “I think that people should be asking, first, ‘Where do I start?’”

The answer to that question begins with answering this one: “Where are my customers?” For example, IBM ran a B2B campaign on Facebook which failed. They ran it again on LinkedIn and it was a success. Why? LinkedIn is where you’ll find B2B folks ready to do business.

The other question that Sandy thinks people must ask is, “How does this fit in to what I’m already doing?”

“You can’t have someone on the side doing social media to see what happens,” she added, “it has to be integrated.”

Lesson 3: “Social media is not just about marketing”

Lesson 3 follows from Lesson 2. When thinking about social media and how you might leverage specific tools, you need to focus on the whole organization and not just a particular function.

“Social media is about social business,” Sandy insists, “and ’social business’ means leveraging social media within your entire business.”

“It’s greater than marketing,” she went on to say, “Social media can transform everything from service and support to inventory management. It can even be part of your commitment to corporate social responsibility. For example, holding virtual events in Second Life was one way we chose to implement our green strategy.”

Let’s Review!

Sandy Carter is an executive committed to social media in the enterprise because she has seen first hand how it can work.

Her experience has taught her that executives have to “walk the walk” if they want the organization to adopt social media technology, that getting social media right means starting with fundamental, business-focused questions, and that social media can and should be used across the enterprise, not just in marketing.

She’s also learned the most basic lesson of social media success: Listen.

“50% of social media is about listening,” she says, “So the ultimate question you need to ask is, ‘Have you listened?’”

The blog got off to a rocky start since it shared a URL with a porn site, and it initially refused to talk about the elephant in the room – Dell Hell.
Has Dell’s reputation for abysmal customer service permanently soiled the brand? It remains to be seen.
It is certain, however, that since last year Dell has improved its blog and done some very progressive things with Studio Dell and the innovative Dell IdeaStorm community, which claims that it’s received 5072 ideas from visitors. They definitely are trying.
So how come there is no link to any of these sites from Dell’s home page? You have to click three times from the Dell homepage to get to a page that explains the various community efforts the company is making. The blog is hiding in plain site.
Dell is not alone in hiding its blog.
There’s still no link from HP’s homepage to Eric Kintz’ popular blog. You still can’t get to Bob Lutz’s blog from the GM home page. And, incredibly, despite the fact that scores of IBM employees blog, you would never know that from the company’s home page.
Some companies link to their blogs through their “About Us” page, but who’d look there for a link to a blog?
I think a lot of companies are still not sure they trust this “new” medium not to inflict a stock-crashing blog storm on them. So their toes are in the water, but they’re still behaving like those old folks at the beach who don’t want to get their suits wet.
Hey c’mon dive in. The water’s fine. Mostly.

This week, it’s “professions from the past”–unusual ones, some of which now exist only as surnames or historical curiosities.
A century ago, those who rounded up debtors and tossed them into prison were called catchpoles (literally, chicken-chasers). A napier was in charge of the table linens in a royal household.
Garg points out that, with the passage of time, professions of the past fade away and new ones take their place. The Department of Labor routinely eliminates outmoded job titles from its database. “Titles such as bonbon dipper and rubber attacher have been bounced recently,” according to Inc.com writer Scott Westcott.
The internet, social media, and 3D virtual worlds make things interesting, too. As Garg says, “These days it’s not unusual to find titles such as Chief Privacy Officer or Blogger-in-Chief on corporate payrolls, professions… unheard of just a few years back.”
Which made me think about some of the newer job titles I’ve seen cross my inbox lately. In her regular communications with MarketingProfs members, our own Shelley Ryan has a little fun with her title: one week she’s the Premium Communications Samurai, the next she’s Premium Plus Camp Counselor, or Mission Control, or Seminar Junkie, Den Mother, or (my favorite) Pollen Magnet.
Other, emerging titles are significantly more real, even if they do sometimes seem equally made up. Blogging is increasingly becoming a corporate job, but “Chief Blogging Officer” really does sound a little silly to me. And lots of companies have “evangelists.” There’s more:

• The American Cancer Society has a Manager of Futuring and Innovation Based Strategies.
• Electric Sheep has a resident futurist (is there a non-resident futurist, as well?).
• IBM has a Vice President of Development for its Emerging Business Opportunity in Digital Convergence. (Paul Ledak: With that title, does your business card fit in your wallet?)

I’ve also noticed:

• VP of Emerging Media
• Chief Risk Officer
• Chief Evangelist
• New Media Specialist
• Chief Diversity Officer
• Virtual World Bureau Chief (The one and only Adam Pasick.)
• Chief Interruptor Officer (Jaffe: This means you.)
• Instigator
• Brand Champion
• Content Analyst

Harry Joiner, an executive recruiter who is more up on this stuff that I am, has a laundry list of
101 Internet Marketing Job Descriptions. And even then, the list isn’t exhaustive–it skips a lot of new media titles I’ve seen passed around lately.
I asked Harry, who also blogs here, about the growth of job titles in the past few years. He said “just about anything involving interactive is new from the last five years. The functions (like email manager and affiliate marketing manager) aren’t new–but companies’ hiring for those specific positions is a new thing.” And, he added, the Web 2.0 and social media titles are mushrooming, too.
Another thing about the Internet is… when you need a little help, you can usually find an online tool. If you are having trouble coming up with a new title to impress your friends and colleagues, give this a whirl.
So how about you? Got a 2.0 title or seen one recently? Add it here.