Social Marketing: 'Be yourself' to be successful, says Ted Rubin of ROR fame

What are the most important social media marketing skills that graduating college students need to understand?

Ted Rubin

I’m asking three questions of some leaders in the field of social marketing and this is what I learned. This is No. 26 in the series (see the links below for other posts in the series).

Today: Ted Rubin, Chief Social Marketing Officer at Collective Bias, inventor of the term ROR: Return on Relationship and the Most-Followed CMO on Twitter where he is: @TedRubin.

"Be yourself, get to know who people are, what they do, and what is important to them" and you’ll have social marketing success, says Rubin. 

"Show sincere interest in others," he says. "Listen, but most important ... hear."

"Look at your own behaviors and ask yourself, 'Would I want to be my friend?' "

What separates a successful social marketer from the others?

"In my opinion one of the most important things is to have an active, interactive and engaged personal social presence and to make sure to experience multiple platforms," Rubin says.

"An open mind, a curious nature, and being comfortable experimenting, testing and evolving" also help, he says.

"More important than social being a part of the marketing mix, is to wrap a social shell around everything you do," Rubin says. That means "marketing, sales, advertising, vendor management, production, research, internal communication and most importantly customer service."

"When you simply look at social as a part of the marketing mix it becomes just another tool in the marketing toolkit rather that adding value to the organization as a whole.

"Social media and relationship building drives engagement, engagement drives loyalty, loyalty correlates directly to increased sales," he says.

"ROR, Return on Relationship™ = ROI."

So, what do you think? How important is social marketing to the future of marketing and what skills and knowledge MUST graduating students have?

Previous posts:
10 Experts Weigh In On Social Marketing
10 More Experts Weigh In On Social Marketing
Social Marketing: Converse, don't broadcast says Ricoh’s Sandra Zoratti
Social Marketing: 'Be able to communicate well,' says strategist and author Jason Falls
Social Marketing: Wanting to connect and being inquisitive are keys, says Lisa Grimm