- A marketing leader is someone who assesses their strengths and gaps, learning what is working and what is not working so that they are willing to put in the work and learn to get better.
- They should learn from other leaders; a leader never stops learning and growing. A marketing leader can watch what other leaders are doing and do their best to imitate and go after their example while still being unique and standing out.
- A leader in media marketing expands their impact and scope. They strive to not just reach more in followings and money but also in relationships and impact as well.
- They also learn and develop their soft skills such as their personal attributes. Talking to people easily, smiling, being positive and nice are all important and valuable things a leader in the media should strive for.
- Then finally a leader prepares for their transition, focusing on a leadership role and what this will look like full time devoting all of their time and effort into one thing.
Types of Leadership:
https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.868755376c6f14073e38f8a89a33df10?rik=gnVUazyxtCjsXQ&riu=http%3a%2f%2fwww.bhrtraining.com%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2015%2f08%2fleadership.jpg&ehk=EI9xnojaVR42MFDM%2f2OoO9h1pkD4uFAzlP9Truw4%2bE8%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0Now that I hopefully raise your awareness of what a leader looks like I will go over types of leadership. There are different types of leadership and dimensions. For example digital and media marketing leaders can be Producers, Distributors, Advisers, Architects, Analyst, and Recipients. All of these different types of leadership skills work in unison to each other to create good quality media. A leader should have at least one of these qualities or as the article, Six social-media skills every leader needs | McKinsey , says that every digital leader should have all of the following skills.
Leaders in Media should be producers, producers create compelling content whether that is an Instagram post, a video, a twitter post…etc. They are creating material that relates to their business and helps their business grow. Some media leaders can be strictly producers designing and creating content for their media team to use.
Then there are distributors who leverage the business by distributing their media on different platforms and focusing on bringing in followers. This is a key part to marketing. If you make great content but don't put it in the right place at the right time, then it will not help your business to its fullest potential.
Another type of leader is an Advisers, they help manage and organize strategies in order to make sure they are having a successful media platform.
Architects or I would call them designers create material and designs to be utilized for all media platforms.
Analysts research and focus on staying ahead of the curve by using data to see how their media platforms are doing and what they should be doing better. They can use predictive, descriptive, and prescriptive data to research what might happen, has happened, and what could help their media platforms if they make certain changes.
Lastly on the types of leaders in media Recipients manage communication flow dealing with customers and media team questions, concerns, and comments.
All of these different types of media leadership are valuable. I would even say that these are not it when it comes to leadership examples. There are other additional forms of leadership and ways that you can focus on when becoming a marketing leader in your industry today!
Case study/example:
What is a marketing case study? According to an article I found with some sample case studies 10 Marketing Case Study Examples - ActiveCampaign , a marketing case study is an in-depth study of how effective a specific tool, technique, or strategizing was in a marketing campaign.
Marketing Case studies also include a few key elements such as introduction to the customer being studied, the problem the customers have, the solution what did or didn't work for them, and then the data from before and after the solution was given. All of this helps a business understand how their strategy actually worked. Below is a graph showing the process of a marketing case study.
10 Marketing Case Study Examples - ActiveCampaign
There are also different types of companies such as third party or client case studies, focusing on a specific customer and how they used or liked your product. There are also explanatory case studies, like seeing how a marketing tactic directly helped a company grow through observation and inference. Then there are implementation case studies, these studies go in more depth to see how the customer implemented what was on the marketing strategy or how it affected the customer in additional ways.
If you make campaigns about things that are of interest to your target market then it can help your business grow through media in many ways. For example this random eye class brand called Warby Parker did an influencer case study. They did a trending study on how influencers can use marketing even with a lower budget. They simply showcased lots of individual influencers doing everyday life but wearing their glasses. This made their brand more popular for influencers followers and helped them grow their business and brand name.
Here is an example of their campaigns and how they related to their customers and reached new followings and customers.
10 Marketing Case Study Examples - ActiveCampaign
Using influencers as a way for campaigns is just one of many ways you run a campaign to help make you a leader in your digital and media marketing!
Innovation:
Innovation is huge in order for someone to be a digital and media leader. Social media is a powerful tool that can be utilized to grow businesses but you always have to make sure that you are using it properly and staying on top of what you are doing.
This article I found, Social Media Can Be Used Against You — Here's How to Ensure Your Online Reputation Stays Safe | Entrepreneur , brings up good and insightful facts about why we should make sure to be on top of our innovation as Social Media leaders. It quotes,
“Social media is a double-edged sword: skillfully wielded, it has the power either to amplify your voice or open doors to new prospects. Another slip can exact gaping wounds that will bleed your credibility and trust.”.
This article goes over five keyways social media helps you be ahead of your game and make sure that you are being innovative and keeping a good reputation on social media for both your personal and brand.
- Visibility
- Building your relations
- Managing and showing yourself as an expert
- Brands for your reputation
- Dominate your network
Building an innovative platform on Social Media gives you visibility, builds your relations, manages to show yourself as an expert, brands your reputation, and allows you to dominate your network. All of these however are only successful if you are being innovative and constantly looking at what is working or what is not working.
Ethical Considerations:
While the focus of being a digital and media leader is to grow your brand and followings it is important to still stay true to both your businesses morals and ethical standards in general. There are ways that can bring you a lot of followers and make you a lot of money online quickly but are they ethical? This is something you will have to evaluate and ask yourself continually as you are trying to grow your media platforms.
For example if you are selling accessories such as jewelry, purses, lingerie…etc. It is much easier to sell and get views if you are advertising your products on people wearing less clothing and who are practically nude. You will have to decide whether or not as a business owner you want to be represented in that way or make money that way. Another way businesses will use social media platforms unethically is to partner or pay for bots and fake scam accounts to follow them so that they will look like they have gained thousands of followers in minutes. This is a fake and not an actual real following. While this may look nice for you it does not even get you more sales because bots can't do that.
Both of those examples I gave above I would consider to be unethical uses of social media and I do my best to stay away from when trying to grow my business on social media.
Emerging Trends:
This article on, Top 5 Marketing Trends and Predictions for 2024 | Gartner, goes over just a few predictions for media marketing trends that should be taken into consideration for people trying to be media leaders. A few of the trend predictions include that customers will start limiting their use of major platforms because of the decay of social media quality.
Another prediction says that by 2026 80% of creative talent will use GenAI (Generated Artificial Intelligence), this means that marketers will be spending more money on creative resources.
On the flip side, something to watch out for is that this article predicts that by 2027 brands will start trying to differentiate themselves without using AI, since customers will not know what to trust or who to trust due to the overuse of AI.
Here is an example of the data Gartner found and a graph they made explaining how more people will need to not just know about GenAI but also learn the talent of and how to use so that they cannot be behind in this ever-changing media world.
This means that as marketers wanting to be leaders we have to stay on top of the trends and not be afraid to utilize tools available to us while making sure we are focusing on being authentic and unique.
Personal Reflection & Takeaways
Writing this blog has definitely opened my eyes on what it looks like to me a media marketing leader and helped me realize practical steps I can practice when it comes to becoming a leader.
On top of the information, I have listed from topics and research there are some key things that I try to focus on and think of when I try to be a media leader.
- Being authentic and honest sharing about my struggles and stories.
- Sharing my missions and having meaning behind my business.
- Showing my niche and how I am different and ahead of my competitors. Why people should support and buy from me instead of other businesses.
All of these are goals I try to have while striving to be a media marketing leader. This blog has shown me the value and importance of being a leader and the many different ways I can do that. Finally, I would like to leave you with some encouragement while you are growing your media platforms. It helps me to remember that it's not just about the numbers, how many likes, comments, followers…etc. You get but rather focusing on how you are growing in impact. creating authentic content, and still building your brand. Whether that takes a few days, or a few years don't be discouraged and keep growing and creating!!
References
Six social-media skills every leader needs | McKinsey
Top 5 Marketing Trends and Predictions for 2024 | Gartner