The Blog

Fly on the wall at a talk with F500 CMOs

June 21st, 2007

So I was at a small gathering yesterday…that I probably had no business being at. It was hosted by a leading business periodical who partnered with an innovative think tank. There were about 15 CMO/CIO execs from Fortune 500 companies there who were hoping to ‘unpack’ social media on the net, and define tangible ways on how their companies could participate. Scattered among these execs were a couple net entrepreneurs, writers and smart industry pundits. Overall, it was a very thought provoking day.

It was ‘off the record’, so I can’t really give you a record of the day (as if you wanted one). But I’ll just tell you what I observed:
– There’s a lot of desire and creativity on the part of the manufacturers/marketers to do…SOMETHING
– Their motivator seemed to be more driven by fear than opportunity
– Loss of control is something they think they can still *decide* if they want to do with their brand

They are denying that they have already lost control. That netizens now have a mouthpiece for themselves that amplifies and accelerates their own individual messages…sometimes faster and more effectively than that $10,000,000 marketing budget.

The execs’ fear of these uncontrollable individual messages getting out seems to paralyze them. They draw a blank on what to do.

The execs I met yesterday are so smart…so passionate about their brands. They’re experts at human nature and how to win people over. Yet, for some reason they think social networks defy human nature – that somehow all the rules they know have just flown out the window.

Human nature has not been eliminated by the net. On the contrary, social networking has finally injected a healthy dose of human nature *into* the net. Your knowledge, expertise as marketers is actually dead-on relevant to properly participating in social networks. Don’t try to STOP people’s messaging. When has that ever worked in life? In marketing? Win them over instead. Invest in reaching out to them. There’s no one in the world who’s passionate about a movement, product, brand, cause, whatever, who wouldn’t want to know they’ve made an impact on a big company. Knowing they’ve been heard by you is a powerful way to create an enthusiast. It’s human nature. And human nature is now alive and well on the net.

Entry Filed under: Life as a Start Up