VP Marketing

As the senior leader of the Marketing team, the VP will drive customer … Merchandising, Retail, Operations, Digital Product, and Data Science orgs. Read source

Hiring a VP of marketing in digital? Here some tips:

1. Look for a professional with extensive experience in social media.

2. Find someone who understands the concept of user engagement and has a track record of cultivating and engaging loyal followers on social networks.

3. Choose a person with a strong focus on metrics — engagement, followers, retweets, shares, likes — and has the ability to provide hard evidence as to effectiveness.

4. Look for someone who is creative and can help you redefine your brand and differentiate your message online so that you can take advantage of the countless opportunities that exist in social media to connect with your customers and prospects in ways that have never been possible before.

5. Hire someone who can help you develop content strategies that will keep people coming back for more while also building awareness for your brand and products or services. The key is to build trust through quality content, not just clever tweets or posts on Facebook or LinkedIn pages or blogs.

This person will likely need to be more than a traditional marketer, so be prepared to make room on the organizational chart for this role, and to make sure your brand is protected. If you’re going to be “gruff” on social media, you’re going to need to make sure you have a strong filter in place. It may be worth it to offer your VP of marketing a seat on your board, so that your social media efforts are closely aligned with your overall marketing plan.

Social Media Policy

Your company’s social media policy should guide employees when they use any type of social media — Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, blogs, and so on. The policy should clearly state what is and is not allowed when employees are using social media in their personal or professional capacities. The policy should address the following:

The benefits and risks of using social media.

Policies and procedures related to privacy laws — for instance, telling employees about the potential consequences of posting personal identifiable information online or using company trademarks or logos without permission.

Definitions of social media — for instance, a definition of a blog or what constitutes a tweet.

The types of social media that employees may use (for example, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, or blogs).

So, hiring a VP of marketing can be very risky, but hiring a VP of marketing in digital can be an absolute game changer. With a strong digital marketing leader in place, your company can begin to reap the rewards of social media — and reap them quickly.

Running the Virtual Gauntlet

If you’re running your business from home or working from your office, you probably have no problem keeping up with what’s going on in the workplace. You know where your co-workers are. You see them in the office each day. You can reach out to them and ask questions or find out what’s going on in the company.

But if you’re running your business from a coffee shop, from home, from a hotel room, or from another state, staying connected to your business and staying connected to your co-workers is a bit more difficult. You don’t have the benefit of face-to-face contact, so you have to rely on technology to help you stay connected. In this section I explain how you can use technology to do just that, and also how to use social media to make connections with people you don’t already know.

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Using technology to stay connected