10 reasons why it’s great to be a marketer
I had a pint with the good folks at Canada’s 1% Army on Friday (cheers Sean!). A suggestion was made (half-jokingly) to only count positive posts in the blog-off. This got me thinking about how much positive writing I was contributing through my blog.
And then I thought to myself… is there really anything to bitch about? At the end of the day, what a great time it is to be a marketer. Here’s how I see it…
1. Young and old(er) are sharing experiences, best practices and are completely oblivious to age. Everyone is a contributor and a listener. Not only that, but competitors are sharing practices too as we begin to understand that we are not fighting for part of a fixed pie. (Props to Critical Mass are well deserved).
2. The friendly competition that goes on reminds me of my Sunday nights when I play baseball with the guys. We’re all on the same team but we’d all like to knock one out of the park. As marketers, we are all chasing the next best idea, insight and revolution and that’s the bottom line.
3. The viral effect of a winning (or losing) idea has never demanded so much accountability. Your campaign will resonate or disintegrate. The amount of “average” marketing that used to survive off past reputation, is no longer capable of hiding in the grey. You either get it or you don’t.
4. Media buying is now media managing. Marketers are handing the reigns to community evangelists, connectors, and rogues. We are all one in the same, playing in a sandbox. The humanization of the marketer has meant less tolerance for product pushes, propoganda, and partisanship. It’s FANTASTIC!
5. We are getting closer to Relevance. One day we’ll be in a place far beyond Permission-based and Contextual advertising. We think this will happen soon.
6. The tools are getting better everyday. XML, RSS, CGI, Maya, the evolution of the CMS, OpenID, Developer Platforms… off the top of my head.
7. So many different forests has meant so much room to explore. Social networks are in abundance. User-generated content is building business models everyday. Search and Answer spaces. This is the closest I’ll ever feel to a pioneer. It feels a lot like discovering new land and what an adventure it’s shaping up to be.
8. We get to market what we believe in. Well, this isn’t always the case, but in today’s environment, promoting causes and affecting change has never felt so tangible.
9. Marketers are allowed to carry a handful of personalities as part of a single identity. Never before would holding down a marketing job, blog, participating in unconferences, and contributing to open source projects, be considered acceptable. Now it’s the norm.
10. OUR JOB IS EFFIN FUN! We’re on Facebook. We’re carrying second mortgages in Second Life. We’re an IM away from London. We get our insights from everyday happenings. We’re entrepreneurs. We’re re-categorizing and then randomizing. We’re attending pillow fights in city streets. We are the consumer and the consumer is the marketer. Work and life are less polarized, in fact, they are more intergrated than ever before.
It’s a beautiful thing.
Comments
2 Responses to “10 reasons why it’s great to be a marketer”
Leave a Reply
- Subscribe to ideas for conversations
-
find it
-
about
Someone who talks a lot, listens a lot, sings on the streets and loves big ideas. If you need a discipline or two for piece of mind, try Marketer and Entrepreneur. If you need a title to legitimize why you'd waste your time here, I can't help you. I work with people on fire for the things they love.
-
recently written
-
categories
-
monthly archives
-
blogroll
-
admin
Amen.
The life of a marketer = awesomeness.
Return on Entrepreneurship…
Return on Entrepreneurship is the sum of benefits, tangible or not, that have resulted in one’s dedication and commitment to an entrepreneurial way of life. What’s your Return on Entrepreneurship?
……