Welcome to the Digital Marketing Inner Circle

Social media is one of these innovations which businesses do need to consider, even if it is only monitoring what others are saying about them.  In Q7, Nathan forecasts the future of our media habits - content on demand.   How will brands incorporate their messages into this environment - as he says it will need to be done in a respectful and entertaining way in order to grab attention and gain response - perhaps this is a mistake many advertisers and publishers are now making?  He also mentions an interesting point in Q2 about his non-industry friends and their perception of what we do.  Personally, I rarely tell friends or extended family what I do - they don't really get it and I sometimes read of others having similar issues.  Many of you may know of Nathan's blog - Another Advertising Wanker?  (which I have linked to at the base of his profile).  If you do, you won't be surprised that Nathan answers our regular questions with great depth, passion, knowledge and wit - you will enjoy (and learn from) the read!

Name: Nathan Bush

Works: DP Dialogue

Job Title: Social Media Strategist

1.  How, where and when did the digital industry find you?

I was working at De Pasquale (a full service agency in Brisbane) as a media planner. This mainly involved traditional media planning but was an agency that clients went to if you wanted a few curveball ideas thrown at you. This allowed me the freedom to present some new media ideas which I believed in and interested me. Eighteen months ago, the agency founder, Gino De Pasquale joined forces with Matt Granfield, to create a dedicated word of mouth agency now known as DP Dialogue. This opened a window of opportunity to do the switch from media to social media. I started interacting with those in the industry through my blog and social networks. I read, learnt and conversed until DP Dialogue could not resist me.

2.  What is your current role and what do you actually do?

I’m a Social Media Strategist at DP Dialogue. Contrary to what my friends think, I don’t just sit on Facebook all day. My primary role is to develop and implement marketing plans for clients which foster open, personable and valuable conversations around their product. It could be as simple as monitoring what is being said about them through our monitoring software Dialogix or actively fuelling word of mouth through social networks. Being a smaller agency I get involved at all levels from raising estimates through to presenting to CEO’s – there are no coffee makers here!

3.  Can you give us some insights into the Queensland market and the uptake and understanding of digital as a marketing platform?

The word on the streets in Queensland is that it won’t be long before black and white television is phased out by a colour alternative (I’m joking!). Surprisingly, the digital awareness is fairly strong in Queensland. On the agency side, there are a couple of stand out agencies who are investing heavily in digital. From what I’ve seen, this is coming on the back of clients coming to agencies realising that they have to start playing in the digital space but not sure how. It allows agencies who have the resources to lead the strategic and creative process and create really effective work. There’s a heap of opportunity in Queensland if you can do the educating really well, earn the trust and deliver interesting work.

4.  Take a punt on the 'next big thing' in media?

Rick Astley taking his dramatic, bogan LOLcat to the dentist.

Alternatively, I think mobile media will become very important in the race to reach our customers. Broadband networks and speed are rapidly improving, smart phones are becoming standard phones and brand applications are an expectation. It is taking the internet from the home computer to the train, the holiday and like it or not, the bathroom. There will be no disconnect!

5.  What trends do you think the digital industry will see in the next 12 months?

Agencies stepping out of their comfort zone. We are in a weird phase where social media is like the kid in the middle of a selfish divorce. Creative, media and PR agencies aren’t sure whose responsibility it is so they are all having a little turn. For instance, it was only this week that I heard that a conservative media agency in Brisbane had hired a creative writer to publish content for their clients. Two years ago you would have been hit with across the head with an APN rate book if you suggested hiring a creative in a media agency. Mind you, they still have separate ‘digital’ and ‘traditional’ teams but that’s another story…

Social networks will break out of their silos. Facebook have just acquired Friendfeed, Google Wave is on its way and aggregators like Feedly are showing all information in one location. I think we’ll see social networks open up to developers so that profiles are carried across sites and interactions can be had regardless what social sites you favour. This is great news for anyone whose siblings won’t leave MySpace.

Monitoring will be available for free.

It seems like a stupid thing to say when we have developed and sell our own social media monitoring system. But it’s true. It won’t be long before Google offers a social media monitoring system (further developed from Google Alerts) which allows brands to comprehensively track consumer conversations. This is why we’re putting all R&D for Dialogix into identifying and ranking brand influencers. This is something that can’t be achieved by a robot and will deliver real, measurable value to a client.

6.  Where do you see the digital industry in the next 5 years?

I think we’ll see what we now class as ‘digital’ become the norm. In particular, marketers will have today’s digital capabilities but won’t class themselves as digital. There will be art directors who take courses on designing for the web, media planners sourcing sites of influence and account managers establishing blogs and platforms for content. I have the image of digital ninjas running offices doing digital things. Of course, specialised and detailed skills such as programming will remain ‘digital’. And there’s little doubt there will be a ‘next big thing’ (eg. social media) where non-digital people can become digital experts overnight… ahem. However, most skills that we define as ‘digital’ today will become a norm for marketing and advertising professionals.

7.  How do you see other media evolving in the next 5 years?

Five years isn’t really that long is it? 3D holograms are out of the question. I think the biggest change will be the increased expectation that media will be ‘on demand’. Innovations like Foxtel IQ, Hulu, RSS feeds and Last.fm are changing our expectations that media fits into our lives – not the other way around. This also means that any branded communications associated with this media will also have to be demanded by the costumer. We have to know, respect and entertain our audience if we want them to stand still for five seconds.

8.  What does the digital industry need to do to better position itself in the broader media landscape?

Stop selling ‘cool’ and start selling ‘results’. We’ve seen how fast the best job in the world can spread, we’ve seen the disaster in the Domino’s kitchen and we think it is fun that you can trade your friends for a whopper. But what has it done for that brand? When we are talking to the Gerry Harvey’s of the world who have been advertising successfully in traditional media since South Sydney were a decent football team, we have to talk in results not functionality. Yes, us nerds get excited with new digital executions but it’s the results which will sell.

9.  What tips can you give to aspiring web entrepreneurs or to those starting in our industry?

You don’t have to wait for a job in digital to be in the digital industry. Start an opinionated (but rational) blog. Follow and engage with interesting and like-minded people on Twitter. Go to industry events. Before long you’ll have enough contacts that you’ll know everything going on in the digital world near you. It’s the easiest it’s ever been to get involved in the digital industry. The hard part is keeping up with it.

10.  Where do you get your industry information from?

Meetings. Blogs. Twitter. I’ve got over 300 blogs I subscribe to and I feel like I’m missing out if I don’t cast an eye over every one occasionally. Again, an aggregator like Feedly helps filter out essential reading from skimmable articles. Blogs tend to recycle and revolve around themselves so if you find ten key blogs to follow which appeal to your topic, tone and interaction preferences you should get the majority of your information covered.

11. What industry groups or networks are you a part of?

I’m a member of a number of digital groups on Facebook and LinkedIn but I don’t tend to pay much attention to them. Most of my group discussions are in blog comments or Twitter conversations. It doesn’t take long to figure out which people or group of people you get the most value out of. Locally, we are looking to start Brisbane social media coffee mornings very soon. Hopefully we will get a nice mixture of traditional digital, social, media, creative and clients coming along!