About marc meyer

Marc Meyer has been a digital marketing consultant for nearly 18 years now. Marc observes, dissects, and disseminates what brands and their customers want, how they want it, why they want it, and how to get it to them via digital means. Marc has held positions ranging from social media lead at Ernst and Young, external social media lead at Accenture to CTO at Emerson Direct and EVP of Sales and Marketing at Marblejar. Currently, Marc is the CMO and Co-founder of Digital Futures Initiative, an educational non-profit geared towards providing curriculum, content, and conversations for children, parents and educators struggling to grasp and understand the rapid pace of all things digital, mobile and social related. Thus, Marc has a unique perspective to offer those who seek his views and thoughts on everything that is digitally relevant as it pertains to all things marketing and technology related and now educational.

What Kind of Decisions Would You Make if Your Future Didn’t Depend on it?

Posted on June 21, 2017 by marc meyer

Image result for kids in school

What if you had no filter? What if there were no repercussions for your actions both offline and online? What kind of world would that be? That would be 2017, where streaming your crimes, your transgressions or other people’s flaws, misdeeds, and imperfections on your phone seem to be the norm. Then you go to sleep and you go to work.

Check your phone. Check Facebook. Check Instagram, check Snapchat. Post some pics. Film some things. Say some things. Rinse. Repeat. Regress. Check your phone. Check your email. Sound familiar?

Where did things go so terribly off the rails? When did we become a society with zero filters, zero morals, and zero discretion?

Unfortunately, we’ve been heading down this road ever since the world wide web was open for business so to speak. The difference now is that that type of world, the one in which no one has an off switch much less a digital moral compass, currently exists for generations that extend from Boomers all the way down to Gen Z and everything in between. As each year passes, more and more digital natives become the face of our societies. Digital immigrants, not so much. I, in our breakneck quest to evolve, technologically speaking, we have regressed to a point in which we all have become numb to a society some of us don’t recognize.

As each year passes, more and more digital natives become the face of our societies. Digital immigrants, not so much. Ironically, in our breakneck quest to evolve, technologically speaking, we have regressed societally, to a point in which we all have become numb to actions, words, and images that would have offended most of us a decade ago.

Is this HBO’s Westworld? Where we’re not “really’ responsible for our actions?

Maybe we’re living in that kind of world now. The only difference is that in our world, things don’t reset. There are consequences. At least I would like to think there are. Other’s however, think nothing of posting, streaming and saying whatever they want. when they want and on their terms. No filter.

I would contend that we now live in a world where the shock value of what we see or do just doesn’t register with us or others the way it used to. Thus, either the bar has been raised or lowered, depending on your outlook; and thus seeing someone being murdered on Facebook will be alarming and disturbing for a lot of people, or it’s just another day in our always-on, digital, mobile and social world. A new low if you will, but one in which we are not surprised. Again, where did things get so sideways?

It’s because of these reasons that I have vowed to do something about it. Along with some others, we have created The Digital Futures Initiative. Our goal isn’t about blaming anyone or anything, it’s more about creating a baseline level of knowledge and understanding for parents, teachers, and children about the power and impact of digital, mobile and social. Similar to having a solid foundation of fundamentals if you were to play a sport, DFI wants to do the same for children. The simple goal? A fundamental understanding. Knowing what you have, what it can do and what to do with it.

Keep in mind that even if you were a digital native, that doesn’t mean that you automatically knew how to use the internet, your mobile device, your favorite app or Google search for that matter. It’s that understanding and realization that we want to bring to the schools. What do you think? Maybe the goal should be to just get the point across that there are repercussions for our online actions? It’s a start but we need to do so much more.

The Difficulty in Being Interesting

Posted on March 31, 2017 by marc meyer

Why do you click on a piece of content? Probably because you were compelled to. Some trigger caused you to cross over the invisible threshold of no and maybe. Was it an image? Was it the promise of a video or was it because the source was one that you trusted?

Chances are, the answer to all three questions is some sort of yes. Beyond that, what prompts us, is the text or words in front of the content. We’re curious. We take the bait and we click the link. Hence the term, link bait.

Fast forward 24 hours and everything has reset.

Back in 1993, there was a movie starring Bill Murray called GroundHog Day. Murray plays Phil Connors, an arrogant Pittsburgh TV weatherman who, during an assignment covering the annual Groundhog Day event in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, finds himself caught in a time loop, repeating the same day again and again. After indulging in hedonism and committing suicide numerous times, he begins to re-examine his life and priorities. But everything repeats.

But everything repeats. over and over and over again. Just like the content clock or the content calendar does. And marketers and bloggers and brands struggle. They struggle with being interesting and they struggle with staying interesting.

That’s what today’s consumers have done to media outlets, to publications, to entertainment companies and to anyone in the business of producing content. We are forcing them to keep our attention. If we stray, they lose. If they stray, they lose. Tough gig. The digital customer is upon us.

Why Snapchat Content and the Longevity of Social Media Content are so Similar

Posted on March 1, 2017 by marc meyer

Follow me here. The principal concept of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are only available for a short time before they become inaccessible. They become obsolete if you will.

When a brand pushes out a “piece” of social media content, they’re hoping that content will move the needle in the form of a standard KPI, i.e. mentions, likes, favorites or followers. How long are brands hoping that content will last? Certainly 24 hours. Then they rinse and repeat, right?

Recently in a MIT Sloan Management post, I read the following in regards to business value in creating social media content:

How can businesses and others reverse this trend and reap more enduring benefits from social media? For starters, it will take a fundamental change in focus.

What most people/brands don’t understand is that users and consumers have been conditioned to consume content in snackable bits now. Their attention spans have been reduced to anywhere from 12 seconds to 24 hours and they move on. Brands have to act accordingly.

Particularly when a brand has about 15 seconds to get someone’s attention when they land on their website, the words and images become that much more important and impactful when trying to derive an action.

The need to have an over-arching strategy to every social media platform is not only a key to success but it should be a mandate. Does that mean a brand should use them? No. But marketers need to understand how each platform relates to not only what they want to do but also in how it might relate to its current customers but future prospects. What do the people want? Give it to them.

It’s not so much the what as it is the how. That means twitter content will not necessarily play well on Facebook and or Facebook content will not necessarily work on Linkedin-particularly after LinkedIn’s latest site changes*

What we’re experiencing right now thanks to the Snapchat generation* is that brands are being forced to create content, messages, and strategies that become antiquated in less than six months. If it’s about branding and creating awareness and thought leadership, then there is indeed an intense pressure to be interesting every day.

I used to say that digital obsolescence only applied to products and platforms but now it appears that it now applies to content itself.

Clearly, marketers and brands have got to elevate their game of being interesting and compelling every day at midnight.

10 Things I Thought About in 2016 that Will Still Matter in 2017

Posted on December 16, 2016 by marc meyer

Today I was thinking about a website that I go to, from time to time called Quotes on Design. What’s cool is that you can constantly refresh the page for a new quote on design. That thinking posed a question internally… ‘How about a site on things I said? I quickly shut that thought down. But…

Instead, here are things I’ve written in my Moleskine over the past 12 months. I just plucked the relevant stuff as it was written on the pages. It’s rather interesting in that you can track my thinking in the tech industry in 2016 and see how much we might be thinking about it in 2017. Hell, we might not be thinking these things at all. You decide.

January 2016

I noticed the term Smart Cities starting to show up a lot in what I was reading, sharing, tweeting and talking about.
Not a day went by where I did not talk about The Internet of Things.
Paid social, ugh…
Snackable Content-That’s all we want!

I wrote a lot about customer focus and for good reason, a lot of the data coming out, basically says, either focus on the customer NOW or you’re gonna lose them

Trust issues were a common thing on some of my pages when it came to privacy, the customer and brands.

I wrote this:

Being innovation led is as equally vexing a goal, as it is a deficiency.

I wrote a lot of words that started with “i:”

Insights
Intensity
Insensitivity
Interactions
Integrations
Indecisions
Innovations
Inertias

And one word that can blow it all up. Culture.

Customer Journey quotes and thoughts start to become the center of the universe of my notebook.Why?

February and March of 2016 Digital Transformation

Here’s an interesting page. On it are the names:

Dynamic Signal
Radian Six
Basecamp
Blab
Periscope
Lotus Notes and then at the bottom is the word/term…

Smart Cities, Again

I wrote: “All anyone wants to talk and write about is…

“All anyone wants to talk and write about is digital strategy, except no-one really wants to share solutions.” If they do, it’s been done.”

#SXSW

Search Analytics

Keyword Frequency

Crowdsourcing

LiveStream

Boost/Program

Visibility plus Credibility =Profitability

April 2016

What is your strategy/vision?

What do you need to succeed? (I love this question)

My mantra? Make it right. Do it right. Make it cool. Do it cool. Happy People.

May/June 2016

Google analytics

Optimization

Inbound/Outbound

Linking Strategy

Killer copy

New Pages

“Performance issue with previous agency.”

Compliance

“Context and message can be 2 ships passing in the night or better yet, going on a cruise together on a really big boat and getting separated from the beginning.” -Me

Create amazing experiences

Designers need to think about people

#peoplefirst

“What are we solving for? Who are we solving for?”

July /August 2016

The true nature of design? #CX? or #UX

(iot) + (streaming) x (mobile) figure out delivery

Humanize the strategy

Influencers? what gets shared?

When did influenceing the influencers become a thing?

There’s content, and then there’s our content

What are we using social media for?

What works? who is the competition?

September/October 2016

What’s more important a resource or a utility? app?

Whats the game plan?

Where does social fit in a brands mobile strategy?

Customer loyalty and disruption

Digital transformation, yea, yea, yea….

Disruption in mobile

Has the mobile imperative disrupted the design imperative?

How do you spell digital transformation?

Why are we valuable?

When you get marginalized.

IFTTT

November/December 2016

Word or term os the year? Digital transformation

Digital Transformation
Digital Disruption
IoT
VR
AI
AR
Design
Customer Experience
Mobile UI

Global Focus Local Thinking

What does digital ________actually mean anymore? Isn’t everything virtual?

CX is the new black

Mobile analytics is so crucial.

data

Which takes me to December 16th 2016.

These are the things I thought in 2016.

My Proust Questionnaire

Posted on August 18, 2016 by marc meyer

In the back of every Vanity Fair edition is the Proust Questionnaire which is devoted to the answers of someone who is fairly well known. The answers never cease to make me think about my own mortality and legacy. The questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature. Here is the basic Proust Questionnaire with my answers.

What is your idea of perfect happiness? I always liked the dopamine that would kick in from participating in an athletic event. That feeling of accomplishment and being totally spent. But certainly perfect happiness might be found travelling for pleasure and not worrying about anything for a few days or weeks. That’s bliss.
What is your greatest fear? Creating an unfinished legacy.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Being insensitive to the plights of others. Wasting days. Complacency.
What is the trait you most deplore in others? Perceived power fueled by wealth. Style with no substance.
Which living person do you most admire? Right now, I don’t know if anyone is worthy of that accolade.
What is your greatest extravagance? Black athletic socks from Under Armour
What is your current state of mind? Searching. Deciding what to do with the next chapter.
What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Accountability for one’s actions
On what occasion do you lie? When it will hurt someone I care about
What do you most dislike about your appearance? My teeth and my flat feet.
Which living person do you most despise? Any person who can randomly hurt someone be it physically or emotionally for no reason.
What is the quality you most like in a man? Truthfulness
What is the quality you most like in a woman? Humor
Which words or phrases do you most overuse? “Interesting…”
What or who is the greatest love of your life? My wife and kids.
When and where were you happiest? My honeymoon
Which talent would you most like to have? To play the piano or guitar
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I would have learned how to play an instrument early on!
What do you consider your greatest achievement? Being married for 20+ years, having 2 healthy kids and a handful of awesome friends
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? I’d either come back as a professional baseball player or jazz musician from the early 40’s
Where would you most like to live? I’d like to be back in Pittsburgh and or New Orleans. San Francisco as a backup plan.
What is your most treasured possession? I have a pair of boxing boots autographed by Muhammad Ali that are pretty cool
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Zero options.
What is your favorite occupation? Musicians with supreme talent
What is your most marked characteristic? A positive disposition and a quick wit
What do you most value in your friends? Humility, Intelligence & empathy
Who are your favorite writers? I used to love Robert Ludlum books. Maybe John Irving.
Who is your hero of fiction? I have no fictitious heroes. Winnie the Pooh?
Which historical figure do you most identify with? My Father, Grandfather and Uncles
Who are your heroes in real life? The people that sacrifice themselves to right the wrongs of others. People that practice random acts of selflessness
What are your favorite names? Lucca and Bella
What is it that you most dislike? Being late
What is your greatest regret? Majoring in Political Science
How would you like to die? Sitting in a chair with Mimi and the kids, watching the sun set in Santorini, Greece
What is your motto? Move the needle.

Sports and Social Media-What have We Learned?

Posted on May 5, 2016 by marc meyer

Recently via ESPN, a social media drama played out nationally as a Texas A&M football recruit and one of their coaches sparred via Twitter, over the perception of each other’s veiled tweets. There will be no good that will come out of this. The fall out is bad mostly for the football coach and his respective university. The fall out is additionally bad because it also shows how recruiting athletes in a social media world can go terribly awry. In fact, it’s not even relegated to “just.” recruiting. Look no further than Laremy Tunsil and what happened to him on what was supposed to be the greatest night/ moment of his young life.

A few years ago I wrote about and presented on the need to measure twice and cut once on anything you might say via social media, but rather than heed that foresight, we’ve all, as a society have collectively run in the opposite direction. Into the light, if you will.

What’s happening is, we’re collectively realizing at the same moment, it seems, that we have become the media. This means that 1) we have realized the power and potential of the digitally written word/visual world and we realize its impact; and 2) all of us have become comfortable with the notion that we’re all publishers, editors and commentators of our lives, your lives and even the lives of people we know nothing about.

Which brings me to these quick thoughts:

Have we done a poor job of explaining the power of social to each other?
You may have no followers, but that doesn’t mean we don’t listen.
Everyone is a coach and will give you their 2 cents digitally
Digital has not lessened the consequences of our actions.
Athletes may have no fear but they always need to be accountable
The phrase, “Act like you been there before,” still resonates
Keep it in the clubhouse still works
Team coaches need to have the social media talk with their teams

It really comes down to this. Organizations both large and small and teams of all sizes, have to have social media governance and policies that extend to their players and coaches, managers and staff. There’s too much on the line both personally and professionally as well as in the amateur ranks to not have the process and controls in place to deal with the coupling of social media and athletes. What you need to understand is that you may never have to worry about these types of issues but if and when it happens, you’re not in the dark as a coach or as an administrator.

The real question really comes down to this: What are you going to do when it happens?

What should you do? What does an org do about the athlete who posts Instagram pics of their party life? What do you do about the athletes who dis another player or team via Twitter? How bout the YouTube video of athletes behaving badly? What do you do? Who do you blame? Do you blame them? Because you know, we live in a transparent world now.

Going forward, athletes behaving badly via social media is not going away. The sooner you realize that as an org., the sooner you can prepare for what will happen. It’s not an if, it’s a when.

Why Entertainment and Social Media are Perfect for Each Other

Posted on March 21, 2016 by marc meyer

Twenty six years ago at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival I watched Stevie Ray Vaughn rip it up in front of thousands of people. The only way people knew that I did was because I told them about it. Yep, WOM.

I would go on to see SRV a few more times after that before he was taken from us too soon. My memories and stories of the times I’ve seen him and hundreds ( Yes hundreds, I sold concert T-shirts) of other acts are solidly entrenched in a sense and duty that those stories are waiting to be told to another willing listener/fan. Thats #WOM. in a nutshell.

What’s changed since then? A lot. The entertainment industry is now built upon “Jenga” blocks of streaming services, subscription services, platforms for buying, sharing and saving music. All are on tenuous ground except for social media. Entertainment and social media are made for each other.

Social Media is the spinach to the Popeye that is Entertainment.

The things is though, Social Media is just 1/3 of the elixir to what is ailing the entertainment business, specifically the music business IMO. The other two thirds that need to be “fixed” are streaming services and how artists can be rightfully paid for what they produce and what we hear. We can spend a whole blog post on that, but for now let’s focus on a few ways musical acts, venues and festivals can leverage social to be successful

Let’s start with musicians. Above and beyond the actual creating of music, it’s imperative that musicians play. Whether it’s busking, club dates or in sheds, musicians have to play, preferably in front of people. But if no one knows they’re playing, then how’s that going to work out? Self promotion right? In a sense yes, but the key is social media, coupled with a an ample amount of balance. This tenet can hold true across the board, regardless of what part or side of the industry you’re on.

You have to balance the desire to pimp your stuff all the time with being interesting the rest of the time...oh and you have to make money doing what you love. So the balance is playing your music, marketing your music and selling your music. Artists can do it but it’s tough. Why is it? Last time I checked musicians are musicians and NOT marketers and certainly not social media marketers.

This is where the fans come in to play. This is where live events, concerts and festivals come in to play. All of the previous mentioned figure largely into the mix. Case in point, I go to the NOLA Jazz Fest as much as I can and to me, it’s about as good of a local and visitor “fan” experience as you can get with the combination of music AND Food. The Music is off the chain, but the food is a close contender. And people talk about it, A LOT. Tell me word of mouth is not big for an event like the Jazz Fest and I’ll see you some fertile Louisiana swamp land. 🙂

Recently I went to the Gasparilla Music Fest in Tampa. A small festival comparatively speaking but no less eclectic when it came to the music, the diverse and high quality food offerings AND the tremendous local libations (Hat tip to Cigar City Beer) The GMF is an absolute under the radar home run.

Not only was it a great venue for musicians but ditto for local eating establishments as well as those who were there for Spring Break and the weather. My point? Technology and social media can and could help and does help, to a certain extent, all those involved. But it can be better. This might be the part that musicians will hate to hear, but they can help their causes more by becoming more actively active, is that even a term? in every aspect of pushing social engagement with current and future fans. Why? Social Media loves entertainment but if it loves musicians, it loves and rewards fans even more. It’s a natural fit for fans to profess their love for a band or an artist and vice versa. But we have to make it easy as hell for them. Don’t forget, people are lazy and technology makes them even lazier!

Real quickly, how good was the music at GMF? Well, when you can watch an artist as globally known as Erykah Badu slay it, up close and personal, that’s pretty cool; or listen to Memphis group Lucero just tear up the stage and then be tapped on the shoulder and be asked, “who are those guys,” that’s even cooler. All told there were over 50 acts of various degrees culminating with Stephen Marley closing it down in fitting fashion. Stop it, just stop it.

Mini festival review not withstanding, I’d like to see the chasm between the makers of music and takers of music narrow so that we can all enjoy the why behind the music. Why do we love music? Why do we love to play music? It’s all about smiles on faces…

Does Transparency Need a Filter?

Posted on January 28, 2016 by marc meyer

If we thought millennials shared too much, what are we to think of the YouTube generation or as they might be called, Gen C? Better yet, what are we to think of anyone with zero filter nowadays? A product of the times? Good for them, they’re just being transparent?

I ask that because recently a friend of mine was on a call in which there were multiple participants. He mentioned that one person took it as an opportunity to share their dirty laundry, their clean laundry and anything else that might be bothering them. All at the expense of the others on the call and at the expense of the allotted time for the call. He said that at best, some of what he was talking about might have been relevant. At worst, it was awkward and uncomfortable.

Funny thing, this was not a millennial nor a Gen C’er. We think the aforementioned groups share too much and have no concept of what should and shouldn’t be shared in social media, but I digress.

Some might applaud this “transparency” as a new way to do business where we can all share our thoughts and feelings, but when is it too much? Even in a loose business setting, which this was not apparently, and especially on calls, time is fleeting. Personal forums for airing what bothers you on a conference call is not the time or place. It’s a matter of etiquette and being respectful of others’ time.

This has nothing to do with no filters and transparency and everything to do with understanding what tact is in a business setting. Clearly, there is a difference between being tactful, being blunt, and being transparent and having no filters. The key is to understand which one you’re supposed to use and when you’re supposed to use it.

Five Simple Rules for Better Tweeting [Infographic]

Posted on October 6, 2015 by marc meyer

Often times reading Twitter feeds can seem almost post-apocalyptic. A vast wasteland of nothing. You scroll through your feed and you see nothing redeeming. Fun fact, we used to refer to the World Wide Web with the same disdain. It essentially was the wild, wild, west where anything goes and anything went. Some think that’s no longer the case. never fear, there’s always Twitter.

Twitter has, for quite some time, completely supplanted the title of THE place where anything and everything can be said in an uber public setting. Again, some think that that’s no longer the case either. But I digress.

What people think is tweet worthy can sometimes waffle between the sublime and the absurd. Where does that come from? A lack of understanding? Context? Of what might be compelling?

My guess is it may be because of a lack of ground rules or better yet, a lack of golden rules. For that reason, the cracker jack team at Digital Response Marketing Group, has decided to offer up 5 simple rules for better tweeting.

A Look Back: What to Look for in Your Next Social Media Director Hire

Posted on September 29, 2015 by marc meyer

About four years ago I wrote a post/checklist on what you should require when you hire your next social media rockstar. Recently I was asked to build a roles/responsibilities description for a client who had a similar ask and thus I thought my old post might help me in building out that description. So let’s relook at the post and see how it compares to 2015 with comments, updates and observations in red.

1. Do you understand how social media fits into the overall marketing plans and goals of any organization regardless of industry? In 2015, I’d say now more than ever social is part of the fabric of every org. It’s either an integral part of every marketing plan or it does have some role.

2. Could you build a sound business strategy for a client around social media? Let’s hope so! Gone are the days where all clients or brands should or would accept someone who knows how to tweet, post to Facebook and take Instagram pics. That’s a given. But can you go deep on strategy? Do you know how to measure? And no not just vanity metrics.

3. Will you be accountable for the quality of all social media plans/strategies/services delivered to clients as well as their overall client satisfaction? You do know that we measure everything and everything can be measured? This is probably the biggest difference. In 2015 we can measure so much more in social than we did back in 2011.

4. Could you establish social media programs that actually drive revenue? Nothing, I got nothing. Self explanatory. Either you can or you can’t.

5. Can you drive social media work for clients? Including strategy development, tactical expertise and execution, and measurement of all their social programs? Soup to Nuts and then some. Not only do we want you to drive the work, we want you to think ahead as well. Think Mobile and Social. What works now? Will it work next week, next month, next year?

6. Can you develop a methodology that includes resources, team structure, core processes, and best practices that can be scalable across the board with media and marketing teams? What’s different in 2015? Managing social needs a team. In some cases, a very large team and a diverse team with general and yet specific skill sets.

7. Could you identify and define social media opportunities for clients as they align with their overall digital marketing goals and strategies? Can you replicate success? Do you understand that one size does not fit all in social?

8. Could you collaborate across all departments and disciplines to identify and implement social training needs? There’s “doing” social and being social but do you understand and can you articulate the nuances of social? Particularly as it corresponds to different platforms? This is a biggie as it can determine success.

9. Could you identify and act on opportunities to attract, market, and recruit top social media talent? I can tell you that what’s attractive to new talent is being able to craft and create social media programs and strategies that push the envelope of what’s possible. Want a hint? Think Periscope and Merrkat and Blab.

10. Can you manage the recruitment, hiring, retention, and professional development of a social media team? Do you know what to look for? What you’re looking for are people that have worked on projects and campaigns from beginning, middle and end. They know what to measure and they know what success looks like. And, they can think on their own.

11. Can you determine the correct roles, responsibilities, and expertise needed on your team to scale and grow a social media practice? If you’re our director, you better be able to. By the time you’ve reached this point, you should be able to “do” every aspect of social and yes that includes creating topic profiles in Radian 6. 🙂 So we need to assume that yes indeed you can determine correct roles and expertise.

12. Do you know how to monitor trends in any industry and collaborate with upper management to ensure preparation for potential changes within a market segment? and then position the company or division for success as an industry leader? This is the backbone of or one of the pillars of social. You have to know how to monitor what’s being said, where it’s being said and who is saying it and then…How to act on it. If you don’t? Next in line please…

13. Could you work with global practice leads and other social media managers to develop, document, and share social media strategies and successes? Can’t we all just get along? Social media is the best place to collaborate on best practices of what works and what doesn’t. We get new toys and platforms coming at us all the time. This is the fun stuff.

14. Can you facilitate collaboration, knowledge sharing, and encourage participation for social media across teams and offices? This is a tuffy Your ability to create handles, profiles and platforms is one thing, but then to mandate participation at least within your org, whether it’s internal or external, will always be a struggle. Why? Because not everyone is social and not everyone wants to be social, even if it’s on behalf of the company. Sometimes you can lead a horse to water…

15. Can you act or be the central resource for information related to social media? Would you want to be? I would hope so, on both accounts. I mean it is your profession and you are applying for the director position…Should I even ask if you can? Never mind. Shame on me for hiring you if you can’t.

16. Could you be a credible spokesperson of social media at industry events? This isn’t a deal killer. If you could that would be awesome, but if not, no worries.

17. Could you increase and raise the awareness of your organization’s credentials on social media both internally and externally? I would like this person to be active on the behalf of the company but we have others who can push that agenda. However, it is a bonus, whether it’s internal or external if participation is coming from you. So if I were you I’d answer yes to this, regardless. 🙂

18. Could you advise client teams and other internal executives on the execution of social media programs and new business opportunities? No changes here in 4 years, this is a resounding yes, you better be able to.

19. Can you determine the right solutions for technology and measurement of social media? Including evaluation of current resources as well as social media vendors and develop partnerships with those vendors? This one is huge. What it requires is that you are on top of what is out there right now. What works, what doesn’t, what sucks and what can definitely elevate who we are and we do in the social space. Technology and tool wise, you need to know what’s out there. Bottom line.

20. Can you collaborate closely across all departments and teams within an organization to provide complete solutions for clients? Depends on your role but in general, I would say you can count on probably being pulled into more meetings with more groups in which your expertise is required, than you initially thought. You’re the expert.

21. Can you contribute to new business development by representing social media strategies and services? Could you sell social media to a client? If you got hired for your position, I’d say the answer is yes.

22. Do you have the ability to build relationships with senior executives within key client accounts? Is schmoozing part of your DNA? Here’s what you need to know, you’re always going to be selling social media to someone within your org. There will always be someone who is skeptical. Get used to it and don’t take it personal. Win early and they’ll come find you wanting to know how they can leverage it.

Am I missing any more key requirements that you can think of? Let me know in the comments section. Let’s build the ultimate requirements doc. 🙂