Marketing in the Channel Skills Gap?

As the world of digital business communication and social media strategy is moving so fast, I think it is vitally important for companies to invest in developing the skills of their marketing individuals and teams to ensure that their company ranks on page one of Google’s organic search and also that their online presence reflects their already developed reputation and corporate messages.

I will be the first to admit that marketing has changed an awful lot since I left Swinburne University of Technology www.swinburne.edu.au with my Marketing Degree in hand back in 1996. We did cover services and international marketing but not cover complex subjects like digital business communication and social media strategy (because they didn’t really exist), I say complex because these subjects can be interpreted in may different ways depending on your business and your need to embrace this new wave of communication with customer, partners and the industry.

New graduates coming into the workforce will of course have a good grip on digital communication and social media from their personal life experiences, in some instances they will choose their future employers based on the companies grip or acceptance of digital communication and social media. The difference will be the way these communication mediums are used for business need to be treated differently. At the same time we need also to ensure the seasoned marketer also has access to the latest training, to keep them current and effective in their current their roles or to gain the knowledge and experience to move into newly created roles within their companies.

Digital business communication and social media creates opportunities for businesses on all fronts, just ask your peers or other business owners about their experience with social media and see if it has helped their business, has it created any revenue? To help understand the enormity of the social media landscape check out this website: www.fredcavazza.net, you can see the landscape and the platforms and I bet there are names you will never have heard of but they exist and someone is using them otherwise they would be listed.

So the landscape is huge, the world wide web is permanent, anything published is available to most people around the world so this business of digital business communication and social media needs to be taken seriously. Therefore training is vital for the development of employees but also to allow them to check out the competition and pick up ideas for other companies in other industries and from people they may never come across and the most important element it will teach them the basics and the discipline required to make these communication mediums work for your business.

My final word of advice that if within your business or role as a marketing professional you actively use digital business communication and social media but you don’t have an agreed and published (internally) process or strategy, stop now, and develop a strategy, it will focus the purpose and objective of the activity and will bring your business better results in the long run.