There are too many so-called digital marketing ‘experts’
As more and more new disciplines enter the marketing field the term ‘expert’ gets attached to a lot of people who haven’t actually earned it argues Tym Yee.
In an ideal world we’d all be leading experts in our fields. We’d spend most of our time contributing to the latest research, reading up on breaking news, innovating with technology in cool ways and pumping out work to such high standards that Mumbrella couldn’t help but write about how great we are.
But this life we live is digital marketing, not a feel good movie, and so the likelihood of this happy narrative actually unfolding for you in this way is pretty slim. This is not said out of spite by the way, it’s just statistically impossible.
To be a true expert in your marketing field deserving of a Jedi-like reputation, you have to have a level of knowledge, skill and experience that cannot be widely found in the landscape – you have to be better than everyone else. You have to be the best.
Nicely said Tym.
Anyone who adds Guru or Expert to a title or name usually offer a sub standard service/product, any decent marketer will see past this. These types of operations have been around 10+ years as I’ve worked in the AU market to notice it. They usually win buy in from SMBs.
Any savvy business will want to see real data and real results/case studies/ testimonials from prior campaigns and know the team working on the project has a deep technical understanding and can translate this to any marketers.
Experience comes with time. Not university qualifications or a few years on the job.
If you can confidently tell me you have experience in:
– Navigating a GFC
– Evolution of offline to online
– Understanding how audiences will respond to video, display, mobile (App, M-sites & responsive), wearable
– Creating your own Adobe-suite marketing campaign without the use of any designers, developers and strategists,
– Planning and executing your own marketing plan. Includes: knowing how agencies and publishers work from the tech implementation (programmatic, & direct), sales staff processes, production management to execution then you are an expert.
Until then, you are still learning the trade!
Great read. Did you have a hidden camera in my workplace? I tend to get “social media guru” a lot despite never extolling Facebook wisdom like a sage.
I could not agree with you more Tym.
If I can add one thing, I think the expert title is also part of a trend towards more abstract, arbitrary job titles. Everyone’s job is becoming more inter-disciplinary and we want to reflect this with a holistic job title, but this can also make us look vague and unaccountable. My business card says Senior Digital Marketing Strategist, but I couldn’t introduce myself as that, I just say I work in SEO.
I think they should be called Digital Marketing Wankers. Facebook is just one gigantic wank.
As the old bloke in the room, couldn’t agree more about the whole notion of “digital” guruism. For one thing, the pace of change and client expectation moves so fast, we’re all inevitably learning as we go.
But irrespective of the “brilliant innovations” or claims of expertise, in the long run the work counts for nothing if the teams efforts aren’t positively and demonstrably impacting the bottom line of the client.
Very few clients would swap “being brilliant at digital” for “making us lots of money”. Which, within reason is usually why they become a client in the first place.
Couldn’t agree more. There are really three ways you could break it up, Professional, Specialist and Expert.
If you look at the medical field, you can have a medical professional. Then you have specialists, who have honed their skills in a particular area. Then you can experts, who are considered industry leaders and the elite in their field, due to further study, research, experience, etc.
You could apply the same to digital marketing – you can have digital marketing professionals. You can also have specialists – i.e. a social marketing or SEO specialist who has honed their skills in those types of programs/campaigns.
You can then have experts in specific fields of marketing – but being a specialist doesn’t make you an expert.
I love this ditty…
How do you become a Thought Leader?
First, tell everyone you are a Thought Leader.
You are now a Thought Leader.
Great article Tim – couldn’t help but notice the sneaky link in the byline though!