One thing that surprises many, if the Corporate Social Strategist does their job well, it goes away.
Don’t believe me? Fine. But this isn’t just my opinion, it stems from research, In fact, I encourage you to first read the Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist report to see details from our 51 interviews, survey to 140, and analysts of 50 job descriptions and 50 linkedin profiles. Secondly, I’m a former social strategist on brand side at Hitachi, so it gives a unique perspective to my research.
Three Reasons Why the Corporate Social Strategist Role Goes Away:
Social Fades into the Background.First of all, social will become a natural way we communicate, the term ‘social’ finally goes away and we just talk about business again. They’ll help the entire company move to “Dandelion” (Multiple hub and spoke) and empower business units to use social. One perspective from Steve Rubel of Edelman reminded us that we don’t have email strategists today to direct us how to use these communication tools, we just do. I’d amend his sage perspective and point out that we actually still have professional emailers that manage the corporate newsletter and email marketing, as official company representatives and that’s likely to mirror on social side. Speaking with companies, most recognize that nearly 40% of the US workforce is to retire in next few years and the next generation of workers will be native to these tools, and in some cases, expect them to be in place.
Gets the Itch to Move to What’s Next. Secondly, we found that the corporate social strategist is an adopter of new technologies, and will continue to move to the next disruptive technology. Perhaps in previous roles they drove user experience, or web, or digital, and before that email programs. We know that the Cluetrain-waving evangelist in many corporations is being replaced by Groundswell-based business program managers. As our industry moves from adoption to optimization, a new type of person will handle the mantle of leadership, in fact, that’s why I just reported seeing the first $350-400k social strategist job to hit my desk.
They Get Promoted. Lastly, we know that the Social Strategist will ascend to new heights –beyond the department they’re in now. Today, most social strategy programs are lead by marketing and communications (read the above linked to report for data), as it was first impacting influence and communications. Yet there’s a great opportunity for the savvy strategist to span to other business units beyond marketing: customer support, product innovation, sales and field, and supply chain and partners. What’s this broader scope mean? We found that the social strategist will span the entire customer life cycle, elevating a few into the office of the Chief Customer Officer. The other route? We’ll see the Corporate Social Strategist move into a digital role, that looks at all technologies in an integrated approach, and they shed the social title.
While I’ve invested years watching these roles emerge, I’m here to tell you they’ll slowly fade into the background. Now if you’re already in this role (see this grand list I struggle maintaining), don’t fret, this will take years and maybe a decade to implement, as we know most companies don’t even have maturity in the marketing department (despite an average of about 3 years of formalized programs) –let alone the rest of the enterprise.
Some career tips for those in this job, or those that serve this role such as agency and technology vendors: Adorn a hat of enablement to get your business units to adopt these tools using your guidelines, and expand your scope beyond the department you report to to increase your career. I intend to continue to be here with you every step of the way during your exciting journey.
I absolutely agree, but with a slight twist: I believe many Social Strategists are already fulfilling roles with other, better names in their organizations; they just haven’t received the correct title yet. You mentioned email – many enterprise-level email marketing managers already live within other parts of the organization and inherit titles with keywords like “CRM,” “Direct,” and “Loyalty.” Likewise, many of my friends who used to have titles like “Webmaster” now have “User Experience,” “Online Fulfillment,” or “Digital Marketing.” I fully believe the successful organization will upgrade their current functions to be compatible with social platforms – PR and Marketing have made it there in most cases, but CRM, Customer Service, Operations, Business Intelligence and many more are due for a change. And when they do, the Social Strategists will fill their more natural roles, shedding their former tit
I absolutely agree, but with a slight twist: I believe many Social Strategists are already fulfilling roles with other, better names in their organizations; they just haven’t received the correct title yet. You mentioned email – many enterprise-level email marketing managers already live within other parts of the organization and inherit titles with keywords like “CRM,” “Direct,” and “Loyalty.” Likewise, many of my friends who used to have titles like “Webmaster” now have “User Experience,” “Online Fulfillment,” or “Digital Marketing.” I fully believe the successful organization will upgrade their current functions to be compatible with social platforms – PR and Marketing have made it there in most cases, but CRM, Customer Service, Operations, Business Intelligence and many more are due for a change. And when they do, the Social Strategists will fill their more natural roles, shedding their former tit
you did not need reasons #2 and #3 – the reason #1 you gave is sufficient proof (and feel free to send those 400K jobs in my direction :-)).
you did not need reasons #2 and #3 – the reason #1 you gave is sufficient proof (and feel free to send those 400K jobs in my direction :-)).
Esteban thanks. Â But you’re worth a million bucks 🙂
Good thinking Eric, I think the role that you just described is a combination of many digital responsibilities.
Thanks Geechee. Â That makes sense for a lot of roles, thanks. Â
This is why I stick to tech. There are still people employed twenty years later running the email servers. When social media communications become commonplace, there will still be a need for the people that run the tech behind the scenes. That’s me.
I am the first on Maui, Hawaii to be hired as a “full-time Corporate Social Strategist”. Most companies still use part-time consultants (actually, they hire marketing agencies to do the social engagement for them). We’re behnd I know, so I am not worried about my job going away because it is just emerging here. That said, I appreciate this post as it will help me plan my future :). I have several classes I plan to take to add skills related to my job but also will be useful in the future, such as graphics design and more.Â
I am the first on Maui, Hawaii to be hired as a “full-time Corporate Social Strategist”. Most companies still use part-time consultants (actually, they hire marketing agencies to do the social engagement for them). We’re behnd I know, so I am not worried about my job going away because it is just emerging here. That said, I appreciate this post as it will help me plan my future :). I have several classes I plan to take to add skills related to my job but also will be useful in the future, such as graphics design and more.    Â
Congrats Liza on your success, it was great meeting you on Maui first hand as you started your journey!
Well done Mr. Owyang. I was a social media strategist inside Dell before the economic fall in 2009. At that time many strategists involved in an innovation-driven, rather than ROI-reporting, role were vanquished. And I think your points are well stated. I look forward to when “social” fades out of our business lexicon. — Oh, but then what would we call ourselves? —
Totally agree. In my opinion, it is exaclty the same that talking about a “social media strategy”. It is The Strategy. There is no space for multiple strategies.Â
This development seems inevitable over the next few years as the social web permeates all business disciplines rather than being considered a add-on. Social strategy will become an integral part of overall business strategy. It’s probably time for me to look for the net big thing, unless of course, it someone offers me one of those $400K position…. -;)
Absolutely.
I’m not sold on this. In theory, the same arguments could have been made (and probably were) for digital strategists and other kinds of roles while those specialties remain even more important today. Or look at completely different kinds of roles. The current conventional wisdom is that everyone has a customer service role, but do we expect that there won’t be customer service roles in the future?
I’m not sold on this. In theory, the same arguments could have been made (and probably were) for digital strategists and other kinds of roles while those specialties remain even more important today. Or look at completely different kinds of roles. The current conventional wisdom is that everyone has a customer service role, but do we expect that there won’t be customer service roles in the future?
Really Corporate Social Strategist Role Goes Away, I am agree with you.
While I agree with you on sticking to the tech part, its now very important to diversify into strategies and other marketing skills as well. I do believe its the other way around as well, the marketing strategist are now getting techie too..
David
The difference between digital experiences is they are often run by a centralized team today, along with their talented agency folks. Â The business units give requirements to centralized team who deploys on their behalf. Â (Key phrase: centralized deploys on business unit behalf)
However social business, by definition expands to every business unit in the company (support, marketing, product, execs, HR, field) and after the infrastructure has been setup, these teams will be empowered to move forward within parameters and resources. Â The business units are enabled. Â (Key phrase: Business units are enabled to deploy on their own)
Feels like you are talking about two different things:
1) That the Corporate Social Strategist role will fade to the background of other positions, integrating into business.
2) That individual Corporate Social Strategists move on quickly from this specific role to that next new thing, a promotion, etc.Â
To point 1, I disagree. Social is here to stay. Just like SEO is still a position that many companies and marketing teams hire. As is media buying, copywriting, customer service, etc. Knowledge of SEO, copywriting, service, etc are important to many business professionals beyond the specialists, but the specialist survives.Â
To point 2, I can see it as an important point for brands and agencies hiring for social, but not sure how unique of a situation it is compared to other industries.
Great post and though at first I struggled with agreeing with you 100%, after applying it to where I work today, I have to agree.  We have social strategists whose job it is to convince the company to adopt social across all groups. The strategist will help them with how to use social effectively. The one thing is that like marketing, social will also evolve, and who knows what it will look like or be called in 10 years. Most likely another form of “digital”, so perhaps the notion of a social strategist fades away, but I think a digital strategist is one that will live for a long time.Â
Not with the cloud there won’t…
well said Jeremiah, social will be a norm the way we’re going to communicate when the term “social” finally goes away. But, what about local-mobile?Â
To me, the key part of the post is the time frame. We’re not talking 3 or 4 years from now… we’re talking much longer. Â Something on the order of how long it took executives to move from issuing dictation to administrative assistants to they, themselves, writing and sending email. Â And to Jason Keath’s point about SEOs – that’s a good analogy. Companies hire SEO experts, but they are also looking for new hires to have a general enough sense about it. Â What you look for in a new digital marketing hire today isn’t what you looked for seven years ago. Â As the landscape changes, so do the requirements (and so should academia and internships and co-operative education opportunities… but that’s a separate post). Â
Lastly, I heard a great line about a product line manager at Toyota years back who said: “My goal is to have my company remove me from my position in five years.” Not because he wasn’t doing it well, but because he did such a good job of infusing his intrinsic knowledge into the teams, they didn’t need him as a specialist. Â If they valued that kind of work, they’d promote him to do something else inside Toyota.
To me, the key part of the post is the time frame. We’re not talking 3 or 4 years from now… we’re talking much longer. Â Something on the order of how long it took executives to move from issuing dictation to administrative assistants to they, themselves, writing and sending email. Â And to Jason Keath’s point about SEOs – that’s a good analogy. Companies hire SEO experts, but they are also looking for new hires to have a general enough sense about it. Â What you look for in a new digital marketing hire today isn’t what you looked for seven years ago. Â As the landscape changes, so do the requirements (and so should academia and internships and co-operative education opportunities… but that’s a separate post). Â
Lastly, I heard a great line about a product line manager at Toyota years back who said: “My goal is to have my company remove me from my position in five years.” Not because he wasn’t doing it well, but because he did such a good job of infusing his intrinsic knowledge into the teams, they didn’t need him as a specialist. Â If they valued that kind of work, they’d promote him to do something else inside Toyota.
Engaging ideas. As with all communication techniques, I think it’s important to separate the medium from the message — and from the results that the communication generates. Nowadays I think there is a lot of mistaking communication tools/platforms with the inherent value they deliver. Rather than “going away,” perhaps the focus of the corporate social strategist role will evolve upward — starting from the practical, to the tactical, to the truly strategic.
Engaging ideas. As with all communication techniques, I think it’s important to separate the medium from the message — and from the results that the communication generates. Nowadays I think there is a lot of mistaking communication tools/platforms with the inherent value they deliver. Rather than “going away,” perhaps the focus of the corporate social strategist role will evolve upward — starting from the practical, to the tactical, to the truly strategic.
Social media rarely expands to marketing, but rather from marketing (or PR/comms for some). This is where the social media strategist lives and will remain. While social grows into every part of business, it will retain a specialist role in marketing for some time.
I agree with your theme including the caveat. I see the social strategist role a lot like the SEO specialist. In small companies everybody does thier own. In big enterprises you have someone to oversee the coordination and best practices.
I posted on Google+ a convo is shaping up here as well
https://plus.google.com/111654284395316165338/posts/4eAq7XVpg2d
Agreed, as someone who just joined Verizon WIreless leading Social Media, I agree that my job it to make my job go away. And you hit it on the nose, I’ve been in digital for 16 years and always gravitate to the next big thing. Social is fun but I’m always looking for what’s next.
Agreed, as someone who just joined Verizon WIreless leading Social Media, I agree that my job it to make my job go away. And you hit it on the nose, I’ve been in digital for 16 years and always gravitate to the next big thing. Social is fun but I’m always looking for what’s next.
Good reading, and I agree that this role will fade into organization. However, one point regarding email channel strategist – comparing social media and emails as channels are not the best comparison as social media has so much more as channel it offers.Â
My guess is that social media strategists will transform to “digital media strategist”, covering digital channels, optimizing each sub-channels and using each channels strengths to return investments
Hey, Nick, as another social media guy, would be curious as to what you feel is the “what’s next”… thanks.
Hey, Nick, as another social media guy, would be curious as to what you feel is the “what’s next”… thanks.
I am agree with you, it’s real fact With the social media and with the best planning of business strategies and also helpful for bussiness.
I got your point here. Social site is for everything but of-course communication is still important. But in corporate world I believe that they will adapt the program for social to benefit a company. Â This is what I probably thinking of.. Thanks for the post.Â
I got your point here. Social site is for everything but of-course communication is still important. But in corporate world I believe that they will adapt the program for social to benefit a company. Â This is what I probably thinking of.. Thanks for the post.Â
I agree with your article..Nice one