2014’s Hottest Social Job: The Chief Content Officer

2014 is finally the year content marketing matures and companies build entire departments around social and content. This past year had a huge impact on the way companies look at ‚content creation‘, ‚thought leadership‘ and ’storytelling‘: they ‚re the skills to look out for in 2014 to add anyone to your social department. CCO ’s or Chief Content Officers will lead the pack together with Content Managers and Content Creators and really start delivering outstanding ROI.

via 2014’s Hottest Social Career | Social Media Today.

Good times for finding a job on C-level in 2014? It seems that a bunch of new positions are under consideration on C-Level. The discussion last year very often mentioned the Chief Digital Officer in charge of driving Digital Transformation in the Enterprise. Others are calling out the Chief Data Officer taking care of Big Data and Analytics. Not to forget the Chief Compliance Officer managing the growing number of compliance regulations. And now the ‚Chief Content Officer‘, 2014’s hottest social career … Guys, I am not sure if the board is happy about hiring all these C-level people with the according salary. But if somebody is looking for a Chief Digital Officer or a Chief Content Officer …

Ok, I will stop kidding, but I believe there is an important message in the posting of Sofie De Beule: We do not have enough people creating and approving quality content in particular in the social world. In the ‚Social Era‘, where people rely on recommendations and what they feel is quality content, we need to take the job of content creation much more serious. Potential buyers are reading communities, blogs, white papers, reports, listening to podcast and watching videos and they network and collaborate with their peers. Todays buyers are much better informed, before they get in touch first time with your seller. Perhaps they have even made a preliminary decision.

What does this mean for your Marketing: I am not talking about hiring another writer or agency producing colorful web sites and ‚Blabla‘-marketing brochures. In my career in B2B Marketing selling complex enterprise software products I have seen so many campaigns and texts produced by agencies, which were not to the point and needed a complete rewrite by an expert understanding the topic. Yes, we still need creative campaigns, but the world of selling and marketing is different in the ‚Social Era‘. We are moving from ‚Outbound Marketing‘ to ‚Inbound Marketing‘.

What do we need? Better, whom do we need? I am talking about people creating and curating quality content on a specific topic and maintaining authentic relationships with readers, followers and fans. Perhaps these are even different people – and for sure it is not only one Chief Digital Officer -, the ones with focus on content creation, curation and management, the others with particular strengths in communication. Those may be the new kind of sellers in the ‚Social Era‘, the ‚Social Sellers‘. It is a fundamental change. We need a complete digital and social transformation of the Enterprise up to becoming a ‚Social Business‘.

And one last thought out of a posting of Barry Feldman. He writes about the meanwhile well known statement ‚Content is King‘. Wrong approach:

So who’s the king? The customer is the king. The customer has needs. You serve them with content.

via Content is Only King of a Fairytale | Social Media Today.

Totally agree, Think out from the perspective of the customer. Which information, which content is he or she interested in, dear Chief Digital Officer!