Before the onslaught of social media, CIO Decisions magazine (no longer in print circulation but still online and now on Twitter @CIOMidmarket) in February 2007 published a great article on the benefits to CIOs and their staff to leverage marketing. You can read the full text of the article online here.
Nearly three years later many of these themes still resonate, and with the explosion of social media IT matters even more. I blogged early this year about one of those key IT relationships -- information security -- here.
Here are some of the excerpts of that original story from 2007 with my comments following:
CIO Decisions: Outside IT, managers forget that the i in IT means information. Many IT departments become so focused on creating and maintaining a technology infrastructure that "they neglect to explain or demonstrate how that technology can collect, analyze, synthesize, package and deliver information,"...
One thing I've always noticed about working with IT professionals is that they do *get* data. There is a real opportunity though for the communications team to show them how to communicate that data and why sharing it matters. Another reason why this is important is that as communication professionals we can learn how a CIO looks at metrics and applies them back to his/her success for the business. We can certainly take that knowledge and apply to our brand and marketing metrics. As social media has become more prevelant and as traditional media becomes an online medium, the problem no longer "what do we measure?" the challenge becomes "how do we measure and manage all of this information?" Working with IT can provide some unique insights from a key business group of your company.
CIO Decisions: Throughout our Habitat research, we have observed that many IT professionals don't understand what marketing really is. As the executive vice president at a global asset management firm observes, "Most people in technology mistake marketing for advertising."
Here is another great opportunity to help brand your company and a key part of your business. CIOs need to better understand the power of social media to position their company and learn from customers. There are also many ways working with IT can create original content for story ideas (e.g., on your next product launch pitch a story about how the product team needed to work with the IT team and do a joint interview). I have found from my experience that once a CIO and his/her leaders see the benefits of positive stories, online comments and internal messaging than using IT as a brand differentiator becomes much easier.
CIO Decisions: The CIO of a midmarket services firm says that basic, in-your-face messaging is powerful. When IT has a successful project wrap-up, for example, an article about the project gets posted on the intranet. "This gets us out to the masses. We want everybody to see what we are doing," he says.
Yes, the intranet remains a great tool, but often stories can get buried. As video technology has become rapidly cheaper to use (e.g. Flip video camera anyone?) the use of video to product online content of IT employees for all employees becomes a great tool. Now think beyond the intranet, and what about your employees using LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, to communicate what you are doing? Suddenly moving beyond the intranet easier and more powerful (and measuring the success of these tools helps you to show that IT does matter).
CIO Decisions: The CIO at a global asset management firm concurs, "Marketing is really all about understanding the customer, educating the customer." This executive goes on to make a critically important point: "Part of marketing IT is creating the set of facts upon which executives make technology investment decisions."
Is there really a better focus group today than social media? While you can monitor your brand in real time on Twitter and view comments on blogs and Facebook, there are also many other possibilities for IT leaders, such as a private LinkedIn group for customers to discuss technology issues. We are at a point in time where CIOs can work hand in hand with communications to get a much deeper and broader understanding of customers and how IT can deliver for them.We're not at the point where multi-million dollar decisions are being made based on Twitter posts, but some very basic blocking and tackling can be pursued.
CIO Decisions: Not one technology executive has the word "marketing" in his title, unless he was assigned to the marketing division. Yet there is a growing understanding that marketing IT is something IT people do.
This challenge still exists today outside of firms not in the technology industry. While companies such as Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, Facebook and other invest in their technology brand, this is often a missed opportunity for communicators in other industries. I doubt there are few CIOs today who do not want to communicate at least internally how they are helping either drive business or make the business more efficient. We shouldn't rely on them to be the ones to communicate this either. Check in with your CIO -- or if you're at an agency pitch a CIO-related story to your client -- and talk about communications and how you can help. I think you will be surprised at the reaction you may get.
