My good friend and fellow, long-suffering Mets fan, Ken Makovsky, has just issued a fascinating survey that reveals CMOs and CCOs are battling for control of social media budgets within large organizations.

The survey says the two functions play nice when it comes to who owns something obvious such as corporate I.D. or branding, but tangle like cats and dogs when it comes to social media.

I'm not surprised there's a major battle brewing in the C-Suite. But, I AM puzzled why journalists and pundits alike don't opine on two equally important matches on the under card of the Rocky Balboa-Apollo Creed main event:

– Thanks to social media, the lines separating the CCO/CMO functions are becoming increasingly blurred. Ergo, it won't be too much longer before a bottom-line obsessed CFO asks himself why his Fortune 500 corporation needs two, million dollar per year executives who do more or less the same thing.

– In their blood lust for control, most CCOs and CMOs don't realize that neither OWNS social media anymore. Their audience members do. Game. Set. Match. The first function to come to grips with the reality that top down, inside out social media simply doesn't work, will 'win' this turf war.

Effective social media today is a never-ending process of listening, engaging and repeating the exercise.

In the end, I honestly don't care if the CCO or CMO wins the title bout because, frankly, it'll be a pyrhic one at best. The sooner each function leaves the ivory tower and experiences their brand from the end user's standpoint, the sooner they'll realize how fruitless, and foolish, their turf wars really are. The consumer will determine how THEY control your social media messages, and not vice versa.