I really don't get it. I recently saw an article from MarketingSherpa that said 62% of CMO's believe that social media marketing will pay off ... eventually! That's 6 out of every 10 CMOs. All I can say is what are you reading and where are you hiding yourself?

In my mind this is the reason why the CMO tenure is a tender 22 months because they aren't able to find a way to deliver meaningful results. I have seen in my career the CMOs that come in and paint the logo a new color, redo the website and collateral system, tweak the tagline and do some PR and within 22 months we are all asking ourselves "was that really worth it?" By the way those CMOs didn't last in the organization either!

This is a classic scenario that has to stop and I bet it will after the market rejects these CMOs over and over again. But the good news is I can feel a new crop of CMOs coming to the stage these days. These CMOs are enlightened about all forms of media and how to use them to not only create a dialog with your customers and prospects but also how to connect them to sales. This crop of CMOs knows there are tons of ways to using digital marketing to create a strong ROI - the question of "there is no ROI in Social Media" doesn't even occur to them.

Let me just go on record to say - I am sick of the notion that there is no ROI in Social Media. So much so I put together a presentation I am calling 12 Ways to Monetize Social Media and whenever you see me speaking you can pretty much bet this will be what I am talking about. I just demoed the content at the iStrategy conference in Amsterdam and will be taking it on the road to places like the BMA Annual Conference and the ANA Social Media Conference to help convince 6 out of every 10 CMOs that there really is an ROI to be had in social media - I've done it, I've seen it and now you can do it too.