As someone who works on the strategic side of design, I’ve taken a keen interest in the rise of social media as a marketing tool. I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading up on other people’s experiences and on the various benefits they have had (or not). And for some, it would be useful to know when there will be regular conversations around a topic of interest to tune into. Just as with TV or radio, we should tune in at specific times when we know we will find relevant, interesting content.
One thing that has always struck me is how we are meant to digest the vast amount of content that social media platforms enable. As we all know, there is quality being produced and shared every day, but there is also a lot of rubbish. There are products like TweetDeck that let us manage what we see. But the issue is that we don’t all want to be glued to our smartphone or desktop all day, sifting through tons of updates for the odd gem.
With that in mind, I thought I’d start a weekly Twitter chat on marketing, with particular relevance to New Zealand (but perhaps with some references also to New Zealand export). It’s a model that’s proven quite popular overseas and it will be hosted alongside my PR guy, Alex Erasmus of Bullet PR. We’ll also be inviting various other marketing types to join us as co-hosts. We also hope to have a diverse range of other people stopping by to offer their points of view and asking questions to anyone monitoring the conversation.
So that everyone can follow it easily, we will be using the following hashtag: #markchat. For those who can’t tune in to the chat at the time, all the conversations will be archived online at http://wthashtag.com/Markchat
We’re planning to have the marketing chats every Thursday between 12.30pm and 1pm. Either Alex or myself will send out the weekly topic at around 12.15pm. The topic today will be ‘Heart vs. Head’. We want to discuss how rational people really are when making a purchasing decision. Specifically, what are the primary buying motivators and how marketing and design should connect with those.
As with all social media activity, we encourage your suggestions on future topics or hosting times. Meanwhile, please join us at 12.30pm and be part of the conversation.
- Mike Holt is chief executive of gardyneHOLT design
