Elizabeth, the big trend for 2014 will be significant budget cuts for Corporate Social Media organizations at large multinational companies. Once again, Cisco is a market leader -- being one of the first to reduce spending.

In hindsight, I believe that it's all good progress. It's the right thing to do, given the results from past efforts. Let me explain why I predict the deep cuts will continue, until the staffing levels and budgets are right-sized.

While there were some notable successes in 2013, much of the Social activity is not strategic -- it has little or no impact on Cisco's core business objectives. Based on my research, this trend is common across all the tech sector.

Therefore, I believe that we've reached an important crossroads, where marketing communications investment will be reviewed much more closely by every savvy CEO.

That being said, I see a huge upside opportunity for new thinking. I've outlined a situation analysis in an editorial that's entitled "Why Social Media is Not Valued by Savvy CEOs" http://bit.ly/15H1yCR

The response I've received to my point of view thus far has been overwhelming agreement that the need for a significant change in direction is apparent -- in particular, the typical 'busy-work' that social media teams engage in must be abandoned ASAP.

In a follow-on editorial, I’ll explain how CMO's can raise the bar of expectations for their internal staff right now, and start down the path of being in a much better position to take back both the control and the execution of their essential corporate marketing communications.