Title: Executive director-global digital marketing

Company: General Electric Co.

TIme in current job: 1 week

Linda Boff, executive director-global digital marketing at General Electric Co., was recognized as BtoB's Top Digital Marketer of 2011. Since that time, she and GE have remained at the forefront of digital innovation. Among GE's latest “digital R&D” initiatives is its use of Instagram and Pinterest to tell its story visually. The company is also wading into mobile marketing. “It's getting more and more important all the time, particularly for us as we enter what for GE are new and emerging markets: India, Brazil, China, Turkey, Indonesia,” Boff said. “We are looking more and more at mobile in these areas, because it's not the second platform there, but the first platform.” Boff said GE takes a “stock and flow” approach to marketing via social media. She defined “stock” as more traditional content marketing fodder, such as white papers and videos that have long shelf lives. “Flow,” she said, is content that is “lighter, more perishable.” As examples of flow, she said GE has used simple games, such as placing two photos of a GE locomotive side by side and challenging site visitors to find five differences between the shots. “It helps our brand be more human, more approachable, more accessible,” she said. The rise of social media, Boff said, has altered the way content marketing works on the Web. “It's a Web rebuilt around people,” she said. But she added: “Content without context is actually not a good use of money.”

Top Digital Marketers 2012

Scott Anderson
Hewlett-Packard Co.

Jenni Bair
Hobart Corp.

Todd Blecher
Boeing Co.

Linda Boff
General Electric Co.

Kevin Cox
SAP

Alex Craddock
Visa Inc.

Sharon Crost
Hitachi Data Systems

Rishi Dave
Dell Inc.

Pam Didner
Intel Corp.

Paola Dovera
Sybase Inc.

Tanya Earley
USG Corp.

Todd Forsythe
EMC Corp.

Alejandra Chavez Green
Dow AgroSciences

Frank Helmert
Aon Corp.

Belinda Hudmon
Motorola Solutions

Cindy Kim
JDA Software

Brian Krause
Molex

Ann Lewnes
Adobe Systems

Lauren McCadney
CDW Corp.

Paul Miller
W.W. Grainger Inc.

Maureen Moore
Fellowes Inc.

Petra Neiger
Cisco Systems

Matt Preschern
IBM Corp.

Laura Ramos
Xerox Corp.

Scott Roen
American Express Co.'s American Express OPEN

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