We’ve seen social networks come and go. And we now find ourselves in a position where, thanks to platforms like Facebook, we have a phenomenal amount of information about our audience.
How our customers shop changes all the time and the pace with which our competitors make marketing moves can be incredibly fast too.
All of that means marketers need to be more adaptable and agile than ever before. And regardless of how much experience or how many qualifications you have, it’s a digital marketer’s job to be continually learning and up skilling.
Here are 4 ways to stay on top of your digital marketing skills without the need for a huge investment.
Attend BrightonSEO
Conferences are an amazing way to keep on top of your skills. And it’s not all about the speakers and the sessions. I often find it just as insightful speaking to other people doing similar jobs every single day and learning about their challenges and how they overcome them.
But conferences can be pricey! That’s not the case with BrightonSEO, which releases thousands of free tickets for its twice yearly event.
Don’t be fooled by the name, either. This isn’t just an SEO conference. Speakers cover paid search, content marketing, conversion etc. And for the first time this September the conference will move from Brighton Dome, where it has been held for many years, to the huge Brighton Centre.
September’s event will see 3,500 marketers gather. You won’t get free tickets for this one now (they went in just 13 minutes). But there are tickets for £100 available here and you can always keep an eye open for the free tickets being made available for the April 2017 event.
Google Primer
Google Primer is a pilot project recently launched by Google that aims to send weekly marketing lessons straight to your mobile phone.
The app is completely free. When you login, you’re presented with a choice of bite size lessons designed for taking while on the move. So if you regularly commute to work by train or you have quiet time while on your lunch break, you can take in an easy to digest marketing lesson.
The lessons typically take the form of small pieces of text information and short interactive activities, making them memorable.
Read Every Single Day
Blog posts, whitepapers, videos, research pieces, experiments, columns and opinion pieces – thousands of them relating to marketing are published every single day.
Digital marketing is a great space to be in from a learning perspective because people share their findings in public forums.
Read regularly, form your own opinions about what you read and bookmark particularly interesting pieces to revisit.
Some of my favourite resources:
- https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/
- https://moz.com/blog
- http://backlinko.com/
- http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/blog/
- http://blog.hubspot.com/
Meet Up with People in Similar Roles
You’re almost certainly not the only person in your area keen to stay up to speed with this fast moving industry. So why not reach out to other people in similar roles at other companies and organise meet ups? It doesn’t have to anything formal. A chat over a quick drink with one or two likeminded professionals every month or two could make all the difference.
Meeting with marketing from other organisations, sharing challenges, sharing tips and talking about the wider industry is one of the best ways to stay on top of change.