Will social media encourage the CMO to adopt a COO mindset?

The role of the Chief Operating Officer differs from industry to industry and from organization to organization. In most cases the COO is responsible for the daily operations of the company. Many COO’s have worked their way through the company holding different positions of responsibility and are now being groomed to take over the CEO position. Key functions of the COO often include:

1. Organize resources as set by the CEO with the aim of creating maximum value for the company's stakeholders.

2. Lead by developing and cascading the organizations strategy and mission statement and aligning personnel with company goals.

3. Plan by prioritizing customer, employee and organizational requirements.

4. Maintain and monitor staffing levels and key knowledge requirements that align with the organizations goals.

5. Drive performance indicators for the measurement of the organizations results.

Will the implementation of a social media strategy transform the Chief Marketing Officer into an acting COO? It might not be a stretch because social media impacts the entire organization, including all members of the C-Suite. You can just imagine the CMO addressing the social media strategy conversations in many board rooms today:

CEO: Does Wall Street really care about this stuff? I thought this only involved your PR department. What’s our competition doing?

CFO: Are we talking about decreasing costs or increasing revenues with this strategy?

CIO: What about network security? By the way, we can’t allow everyone to be downloading all these new untested desktop social applications. And don’t even get me going about the mobile angle.

Legal: I’ll need to consider our risk and exposure. Have we addressed any standards or procedures around social media? Who did you say was going to be blogging and tweeting?

CSO: Are we using this to generate sales leads or is it about customer service? If it’s about leads, will the quality be good? Should my sales teams be involved? What about my call center?

HR: Are we going to allow all employees access? If so, what about productivity? Are we using this for recruiting?

What do think? Does the CMO need a pay increase?