The late, great David Bowie sang ‘Ch ch ch ch changes, Turn and Face the Strange’. (He continued on to say ‘Where’s your shame, you’ve left us up to our necks in it’ – but that’s a different blog altogether!). Turning to face the strange sums up how I felt, when having spent the last few years in Partner marketing for Cisco, I took on the added responsibility for delivering some of our demand generation campaigns.
Now, to be clear, I have been in marketing for longer than I care to admit and felt pretty confident in my range of skills. I had been concentrating on working with partners, rather than implementation, for 3 or so years – what could have changed in that time? What indeed? Well to stick with the music references – A Whole New World (Featured in Aladdin for those of you looking quizzical). I knew intellectually that the inexorable rise of social media has been a complete game changer, but the reality was still a shock.
All the clever things you can now do with Facebook, Twitter and the rest has been a revelation. However people were speaking a language I had never heard. Media planning and buying (real-time bidding anyone?), budget allocation, tracking, ROI – all totally different to how I used to work. And it’s been such fun! Discovering a whole new communications channel – one that can react instantaneously, speaking directly to people who want to hear from you, and better still, enabling them to interact with you and your brand – has been a blast. I am still no social media expert – but I am a convert.
There is still so much I do not know (thank heavens for specialist agencies), and it is moving so fast – but its fun learning. Thanks to the rest of the team, who have been patient with me, explaining what was happening when I obviously looked totally blank. Here’s to the next campaign! (By the way my Twitter handle is @chrissie202 if you fancy following me!)
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