Foursquare moves search and discovery to the forefront and creates Swarm for friend location stalking.
Snapchat introduces a video calling feature (that really puts friends in your face).
Vine moves to a web-based YouTube model (because all video should be channel agnostic and quite frankly- who has the attention span of more than six seconds on a video network anyway?)
Facebook proclaimed “more privacy for users and building trust” during the f8 conference across multiple new platform refinements— but they also launched a new mobile ad network called FAN—which uses the most robust data available (all the data we as users, provide to FB) for mobile ad targeting. Not contradictory at all?
This all happened within 24 hours.
We learn one thing and before you know it, technology iterates more rapidly that we can keep up with. This has implications for marketers who drive engagement and content using certain technology platforms. Yet, a large majority of marketers still just think of the above examples things as “social media” versus marketing technologies. Some marketers remain in conflict with their “set” marketing plan versus a flexible one that accommodates tech evolution per the above examples. These social examples only scratch the surface on “marketing technologies” as a larger theme inclusive of marketing automation, CRM and analytic platforms— there are 1000’s out there.
Who’s responsible for marketing technology?
Is that still the responsibility of the brand marketer? The digital strategist? Do they still exist? The CMO? Are they too high level for this granularity? Possibly- depending on the company. Do we need to create a new discipline within marketing that *just* handles assessing and implementing marketing technologies? Marketing technologist?
Maybe we can coin #TechFlex a new aspirational skill for marketers? Can we add that to LinkedIn? Can I endorse someone for this?
“My marketing acumen allows for flexibility and adaptability to new technologies as they relate to activating customer connections, engagement and ultimately driving revenue for my core business objectives. I understand technologies change at a rapid pace and am capable of developing a plan that remains open for assessment, iteration and testing and refinement”.
Polarizing, yet aspirational thinking about marketing and organizational models as they relate to technology advancements and innovation. Something I’m going to spend a little more time researching.
Image credit: CC by Insomnia Cured Here
