{"id":2231,"date":"2015-02-19T13:47:16","date_gmt":"2015-02-19T18:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/?p=2231"},"modified":"2018-08-15T13:50:20","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T17:50:20","slug":"teach-an-old-dog-new-digital-marketing-tricks-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/teach-an-old-dog-new-digital-marketing-tricks-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Teach an Old Dog New Digital Marketing Tricks"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
Winston Binch<\/div>\n
Guest Writer<\/div>\n
Partner, Chief Digital Officer of Deutsch in North America<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
You’re a middle-aged chief marketing<\/a> officer. And everything and everyone around you is rapidly advancing in matters digital.<\/div>\n
But your chaotic schedule won’t allow you to learn all the things your youngest employees were seemingly born knowing how to do.<\/div>\n
You owe it\u00a0to yourself and to your career to develop skills that keep you at the top of your game.<\/div>\n
Here\u2019s what you can do to survive in this digital age:<\/div>\n
Related:\u00a0The Video Revolution Will Not Be Televised<\/a><\/div>\n

1. Spend 20 minutes a day exploring.<\/h2>\n
There are no digital experts. The pace of technological change is too fast. Everyone is an\u00a0explorer. The best practitioners just spend more time doing it than you. If you want to stay ahead, you need to understand the possibilities.<\/div>\n
To do that, make digital exploration part of your lifestyle. When you hear about a new site, app, service, company, look it up. You don’t need to learn to code, but engage\u00a0in the online and tech universe\u00a0and actively educate yourself.<\/div>\n

2. Get on Twitter and Instagram.<\/h2>\n
Sign up. Follow on Twitter and Instagram your\u00a0colleagues, other chief marketing officers, brands, personalities and news and sports outlets that interest you.<\/div>\n
Don\u2019t act like a corporation. Be yourself. Try to create a few posts or updates a day. Experiment.<\/div>\n
Share things that you’re proud of or whatever\u00a0grabs your attention. Comment. Ask questions. Respond.<\/div>\n
Once you’re comfortable, try out other social-media networks. You don\u2019t need thousands of followers. You just\u00a0want to learn best practices and formulate opinions.<\/div>\n

3. Download apps. Buy gadgets.<\/h2>\n
Find your inner app geek. Replace as many life tasks as you can with digital services. Purchase gadgets and download apps even if you don’t know what they are exactly at first.<\/div>\n
Some of my favorite apps to use include Uber for rides, Zite for news, Postmates for delivery, FitStar for workouts and Dark\u00a0Sky for weather.<\/div>\n
And don\u2019t forget to avail yourself of the connected gadgets. Do some weekend drone flying, make GoPro movies and buy some wearable tech.<\/div>\n
Document your learnings. You’ll spot trends and become\u00a0smarter.<\/div>\n
Related:\u00a011 Unusual Social Media Tips to Drive Branding, Clicks and Conversions<\/a><\/div>\n

4. Follow BuzzFeed video and Vice on YouTube.<\/h2>\n
You\u2019re not just competing with other companies. You\u2019re competing to keep up with culture.<\/div>\n
BuzzFeed and Vice and other video outlets are creating a lot of it\u00a0these days. BuzzFeed has<\/a> more than 74 million unique visitors and routinely scores more than\u00a01 million views a\u00a0video.<\/div>\n
Spend as much time as you can on popular YouTube channels like BuzzFeed and Vice.\u00a0Follow the feeds of\u00a0popular video creators.<\/div>\n
There\u2019s an art and science to creating shareable digital video content. Familiarize yourself with it. Everything you make should be designed so it could be\u00a0shared online.<\/div>\n

5. Hang out with proven innovators.<\/h2>\n
Many professionals\u00a0talk to themselves\u00a0too much, forgetting that the best ideas result from divergent thinking. Over the last seven years, I have tried to exit my comfort zone by spending one-on-one time with proven innovators\u00a0outside the advertising and marketing field.<\/div>\n
I\u2019ve met with venture capitalists, engineers, founders and notable technology thinkers. I take\u00a0an annual ski trip organized by Path founder Dave Morin called The Lodge with a group of tech innovators to expose myself\u00a0to new and unexpected thinking.<\/div>\n
Most of these different types of\u00a0people whom you\u00a0will reach out to\u00a0will want to have a relationship with you. Invite them over, have them speak to your company and take dine with them at events like SXSW, CES, TED or Cannes.<\/div>\n
Also participate in labs run by Google, Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter and meet with\u00a0the engineers not just the salespeople. You\u2019ll learn a lot more from the makers than the sellers.<\/div>\n

6. Hire Internet kids.<\/h2>\n
Training will help, but it won\u2019t be enough. The digital landscape is too complex and fast moving. And this is an age of specialization. If you want to do breakthrough marketing, surround\u00a0yourself with young digital specialists who are obsessed with Internet culture and technology, the type of people who explore the digital world for fun, not just work.<\/div>\n
Put them in key and empowered roles and task them with evaluating ideas, identifying\u00a0the right partners, developing digital, mobile and social media strategies and keeping your company digitally literate.<\/div>\n
Find the Gen Y people\u00a0who know how to win on the Internet.<\/div>\n
The next generation of brands that history will remember will be digital at their core. Stay close to the talent inventing it. Hire young, digital folks and people smarter than you.<\/div>\n

7. Remember what you bring to the table.<\/h2>\n
Digital natives instinctively understand what works on the Internet. But remember you’re a marketing chief\u00a0for a reason —\u00a0not because you can fly drones, build robots and write code.<\/div>\n
You understand business, culture and brands and have the skills and experience to lead people and large organizations. You have vision — something everyone needs but few possess. The secret to your longevity is maintaining curiosity, keeping an open\u00a0mind and giving smart young people plenty of runway. Don\u2019t tell them what to do. Show them where to go. That way everybody wins.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winston Binch Guest Writer Partner, Chief Digital Officer of Deutsch in North America You’re a middle-aged chief marketing officer. And everything and everyone around you is rapidly advancing in matters digital. But your chaotic schedule won’t allow you to learn all the things your youngest employees were seemingly born knowing how to do. You owe … Continue reading Teach an Old Dog New Digital Marketing Tricks<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marketing","pmpro-has-access"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4MGMb-zZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2232,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2231\/revisions\/2232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}