Navigating Challenges and Grabbing Opportunities.

As social media marketing is increasing among the audience the number of obstacles is also increasing for the marketers. The marketers are trying their best to deliver the best content to the audience but somewhere, they are facing hurdles. So, to discuss about the challenges and opportunities for social marketers Professor Wendy Greenwood featured Caroline Berryman in a seminar that I attended this week. Caroline has 13 years of experience as a retail marketer, in 2006 she entered in Public Sector working with York Region. Today also she is in the public sector working with Regional Municipality of York. With Caroline’s strong background and experience, I have learned a lot from this seminar. I am sharing some of the reflections on the seminar.

Caroline started with saying, we have to be great storyteller. She explained the importance of delivering the message to the audience and each story has 3 parts beginning, middle and end. All three part is important because that’s how our audience will resonate. I would sell an idea rather than a product because an idea has a story and a good storyteller can elaborate it perfectly. According to me, an idea has more impact than a product because it directly deals with the audience's mindset and behavior. She also said to create an excellent customer experience. It is obvious that if a customer gets 9 good services and 1 bad then that one bad experience will be highlighted. Caroline suggested opportunities with technology that will help a marketer gather data and use it for future plans. As she mentioned in starting of the seminar to be pivoted, we need to grab extra responsibilities, be open-minded, and take the initiative to help or gain some skills. Another great opportunity is, to be updating and gaining new skills. We can do this by attending webinars and networking events and from this, we can get great ideas from minded people. Linkedin is also a great place to increase connection which I personally relate to, by connecting people around and seeking advice from them.

During the seminar, we had a case study to do on a campaign for York Region’s road construction in which we had to create the awareness and educate the audience about upcoming construction. So, our group came up with brilliant ideas. Firstly, to communicate with the public for the start of the project. We planned to conduct a press conference to provide the basic outline of the project to the public, and also explain how the development will be beneficial. Informing about the timeline of the project which will be for 3 years starting from March/April 2024 till March/April 2027. We also had an idea to launch a reverse countdown in the final year of the project. We had the idea to engage with local businesses, as the construction does not impact on their business. We decided to provide interactive maps to have access. And Caroline liked this idea she said. With tactics, we came up with the idea of distributing regular newsletters and regular updates. This case study was really helpful for me and the ideas will definitely help me in the future.

So, for me career path in the public sector doesn’t appeal because, day by day the audience’s perspective is been changing. The audience is looking for something more and more as they think they are the only customer. As Caroline said with instant technology people are looking for instant response back and yes this is totally correct. The audience is purely aware of the process but no, the need to be first in line. And this stops me from entering in public sector. The marketers are trying their best but the audience is never satisfied.