26 Jul Do You Have What it Takes to be a Real-Time Marketer?
Image Credit: Earthport.com
Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of talking to some lovely PR and social media professionals about real-time marketing as part of the CIPR’s Social Summer series of events.
After I cooled down from a rather hellish tube journey (I honestly don’t know how you Londoners do it day in and day out during a heat wave!), I covered what, from experience, I consider to be the five core principles of effective and responsive news-jacking. This is the slide deck I used:
[slideshare id=24643751&style=border: 1px solid #CCC; border-width: 1px 1px 0; margin-bottom: 5px;&sc=no]
One thing occurred to me as I talked, however, and is something I’ve given more thought to since:
There’s a definite mindset associated with agile marketing practitioners.
It’s not specifically about speed or creativity or understanding or insight, and yet it encompasses all of these. It’s a distinct talent or skill in its own right.
Successful agile marketers have heightened awareness of opportunities. They have a sixth sense of being able to spot what will resonate within their social media channels when it comes to news, cultural topics and internet memes, and they’re shrewd and smart enough to act on it quickly and creatively. They live in-the-moment.
And that’s the real secret to urgent genius: having vision and seeing things with a different eye to other people.
This isn’t something that you can easily turn on and off. Either you’re a real-time marketer or you’re not. But can this talent be learned? Personally, I think the agile mindset is something that can be developed through practice in the same way that a sense can be heightened by repetition.
But, believe me, it can become a little overpowering when every time you turn on the news or watch a sports event, all you can think of is how Brand X could respond to what’s happening! So the question is: do you really want to learn it?
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Posted by Paul Sutton
