Snippets on Social Media and Jobs from CMO Survey

PDF of the Results, February 2011 CMO Survey

Assuming good news travels fast, we hope, you'll read quite a bit of press coverage on this survey which points to optimism on the part of CMOs but wonder if up is still down.

The report points to a shifting consumer focus away from price towards innovation and even bigger focus on brand with companies emphasizing market penetration over market and product development.

Social media spending reported as "unabated" but to me the projected increase from an almost 6% to and almost 10% in twelve months only reinforces my belief that social media is grabbing attention from more important things that marketers should be paying attention to and investing in, especially the smaller companies which tend to spend the most on social media. And, as noted in the study, social media is still hanging out there and not integrated well into marketing strategy.

Yet, there is this number: Percentage of social media employees within marketing at 54.4%. Looking for a job?  The point on the left is February 2010 and the one on the right is February 2011. That low you are looking at was last August.

For consulants there is some good news: service consulting higest percentage increase as industry for new hires and the outsourcing of marketing is, in the language of the report "inching up."

Lots of inching going on.  Used to be graphs would cover five or more years, we are now down to comparing this year to last year and with that perspective the numbers clearly show things are looking up.