Raise your right hand and repeat after me.

I [insert name], Chief Marketing Officer of [insert company name], do solemnly swear to:

1. Prevent squatters from taking over our company URLs on Twitter or other major social media websites and get them back if/when they do
2. Prevent employees from reserving important company names, brands and products on social accounts and later leaving the company and taking important passwords with them
3. Have a positive response for consumers talking about our brand in social media websites
4. Create good video content for YouTube and other major video sharing websites
5. Work with my advertising agency to run new creative / media buys which includes our company’s social media URLs
6. Make sure my web development and creative team put a Facebook or Twitter badge on our main websites
7. Work with my web analytics team to create custom reports so that I can see KPI’s for social media activity and referrals
8. Make absolutely sure my board, my investors, my CFO, and my CEO understand that we need adequate budget for social media marketing

And I will never allow:

1. My marketing team to tell me that they don’t know how fast our social media audience is growing
2. Legal to say we cannot run contests or sweeps
3. Marketing consultants to tell me that the only way to participate in social media is by creating a branded community that we control where we invite all of our brand advocates and try to sell them things
4. My CEO to tell me that we cannot have a blog on our website or that there is no time for anyone to blog
5. My kids to tell me they know more about social media than I do
6. Myself to think that:
   • social media marketing is something that gets instantaneous results
   • social media is nothing more than glorified press campaigns
   • social media is about selling our products to people who “hang around blogs”
   • social media marketing means buying ads on social networking websites
   • everyone who says they are a social media expert is an actual social media expert
   • apps are the entirety of social media opportunity
   • …or to be behind the curve or unaware of new and emerging social media sites and emerging technologies that help consumers connect with and understand our brands, products and services

Congratulations, you may now hold your head high and move into social media marketing with confidence and grace. You will not be battered by your colleagues for not knowing enough, nor will you be pushed around by Legal, PR, Web Development or Management committees who say “you can’t.” You are now empowered to succeed and to do better than your competitors by connecting with your consumers in a meaningful and effective way.

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