Seek Says it All – Plus Some

Seek Says it All – Plus Some

7 October, 2013

Of the 333 marketing and communications jobs listed on SEEK, close to 90% of roles identify social media expertise as being important and almost 20% of roles now have social media or digital media in their title.

Add to this NZX heavyweight Auckland International Airport’s recent appointment of a new director with expertise in digital marketing and ACC’s recent release of a tender for the provision of a social media monitoring tool, and it’s evident that lacking a social media skill set is severely career limiting.

Internationally the signs are everywhere. Just this week no frills airline Ryanair, notorious for ignoring/undervaluing any form of marketing except for price, opened a twitter account to improve how they communicate with their target market.

Clayton Badland, General Manager of Hudson, a global talent solutions company confirms this. “With the importance of digital and social media being on a number of organisations’ radars, it is imperative that marketing and communications professionals look to further develop these skill sets in order to add even more value in their roles.”

Jeremy Marks, co founder and director of social media marketing consultancy MOSH explains how ‘bringing people up to speed’ - better known as educating the client quickly - became a priority after various early stage briefing meetings where the prospect couldn’t get their head around the magnitude of the social media opportunity.

“We reviewed how much time we spent explaining social media to our prospects and clients. A well informed client, in terms of comprehending what was possible, would lead to a more productive consultant relationship. It comes down to good governance, understanding the over arching strategy to ensure a team drives towards the outcome. If however, you have no idea what social media can deliver, it’s easy to be fooled into thinking any old campaign will work,” said Mr Marks.

To foster better insight, MOSH started developing social media training credentials, from introductory courses through to the strategic application of social media. “Many marketers and PR practitioners have been too busy to keep abreast, in a sophisticated way, of social media. Our courses enable them to build capability so that the client-consultant relationship can be more productive more quickly. This way their business investment delivers measurable returns and enables speed to market,” added Mr Marks.

Social media needs to be integrated with existing marketing programmes – particularly those that have been running for a number of years. Ensuring the integration is seamless and brings genuine results over and above social activation is the key benefit.

Mr Marks concluded with the comment that “While learning on the job is a good ‘make do’ approach, the advantage of undertaking specialised training is the added intelligence gained from people who have made it their business to succeed in this field, instead of relying on trial and error.”

ENDS

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