This blog is my first blog talking about my other expertise, Marketing seriously. I believe Marketing is associated with life, so I put this under the category of life. I am doing Digital Marketing and UXUI Design, and my clients are small businesses in Ontario. It is interesting because I believe I brought a lot of brand designing aspects when I did marketing for business. I was wondering is that possible to be a marketing professor. In ‘The End of Marketing’, Carlos Gil talks about a few trends about Digital Marketing and I guess I have my answer.
Socializing is the norm.
I believe everyone has social media accounts. The Internet changed our life. In the beginning, we saw email as the better way to communicate, we made our work paperless so we can be more efficient. Then digital marketing joined our life. People at school and work start to use social media to make friends and our email inbox is full of sellers newsletter. People were being critiqued about social media, and Onah talked about her experience with LinkedIn. But I believe social media is our daily life now. Because it is our life, so we would like to hear some different words, like criticism.
People would spend around an average of 3 hours on social media every day. This is our daily life. I believe covid is making the time longer. This is almost 20 percent of our entire life.
Social Media offers the utopia world that everyone wanted to achieve, Ferraris for everyone, rich and pretty for every girl. Social Media also became the primary way for gaining information and communicating with others.
We cannot underestimate the power of networking in business because of the inherent trust it brings.
When we prefer buying the products introduced by YouTubers instead of celebrity endorsements, and the ads we looked at is more through social media instead of traditional media. We have entered an era of social marketing.
The brand personification
People come to social media is to enjoy the good content and meet new people. So the brand has to act like a real person so the customers would be willing to make friends with the brand = spending money for the brand. Consumers are inherently resistant to sales pitches and commercial companies. So we would like to trust our favorite YouTubers and purchase the products they recommend because they are more close to us. The key of digital marketing is making the friends with the customers first then spread.
Social Media Celebrities vs. Brands
Follow up on the last points, more and more YouTubers are creating their brands. They have a solid customer based, they are real people, they speak for their brands and we can see them everywhere on social media.
So in the future, these social media celebrities will continue to rapidly erode brands’ market share thanks to the power of social media.
Talk to Customers
Even though part of my job is creating a user experience, I have my personality, I can not tell all the customers’ thoughts when they browse our online presence. So this is also the tough part for marketing, I can only touch the business I am interested in and have experienced, or I will not have the motivation and confidence to build up the user experience of the unfamiliar business. We need to have the questionnaire and user personas, which is the foundation for user experience research.
So the best and most efficient way to get helpful advice for the business is to talk to the customers, so I can know which part I can improve.
The Customers are the media
One customer can affect a group of people. A loyal customer group is a basis for the survival of every company, as the followers of these YouTubers. One bad review can destroy 10 good reviews, thanks to the power of social media.
So if I answer the question at the beginning, I would say “It is hard to be a marketing professor (for me for now)” because I should be a good business owner first. Each business has its area, it is hard to give an overall view of the marketing world. Selling things more depends on the buyers, this is also hard to control and give a predicable idea. Good business would start from the points of view of the customers. This is also what is a customer service agent experience brought to me.
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Yanfei ❤
Life Outside of Design Studio 
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