I receive so many feeds and eZines that there are times I simply don’t have time to even open them all let alone read them all! But I’m an infoholic and do my best to keep on the edge by watching and analyzing the commentary, studies and observations of online marketing “experts.”
In doing so, being an expert in training for the entire life of my consulting practice here at TheIStudio.com, I’ve realized that anyone who is attempting to keep up, trying to get it and working towards a better understanding of how online marketing works is in fact an expert in training. You simply cannot know it all when what you know is constantly in flux and morphing many times for reasons yet unknown or documented.
The online marketing gig, right now, is evolving like crazy. Social media and online marketing have taken a turbo turn into an arena that is being tested, analyzed, extrapolated by every “expert” imaginable. What is clear is how every single self-proclaimed expert has a different take on what we’re doing, should be doing and/or where we are going when it comes to online marketing. Some of these experts back up what my over a decade of experience proves out, while there are those who go in directions I have yet to consider causing me to question what I thought to be true just the day before.
That’s the exhilarating part of right now! If you thought the early days of the Web some 10-15 years ago was the wild wild west, you haven’t seen anything yet. Everything can be tried, tested, analyzed, changed to produce different results — and that’s exciting. It seems almost every expert is on a mission based on experience unique to them to determine metrics, create successful strategies and more importantly, how to measure everything that has to do with site visitor’s habits and activities to produce ROI. The funny thing is not any program, strategy or “metric” will apply the same to every site, program, market, methodology or strategy.
Each Web site is an island unto itself in regard to approach, tools, methodologies and strategies that may work. And not anyone can tell the site owner exactly, specifically, what to expect other than to expect the unexpected. There will always be new twists and turns that are unique to each individual site that can cause even the most expert of “experts” to scratch their heads.
Online marketing is a work in progress. Anyone who claims to be an expert will admit that they realize the importance of building on their expertness on almost an hourly basis. This is the only way to ensure they have all the information and data available to apply to the project at hand — at that moment in time.
“The world is so fast that there are days when the person who says it can’t be done is interrupted by the person who is doing it.” -Anon.
It is the experts in training that push the envelope, try new things no one has yet to try, and repurpose strategies so they can be born anew. Thank goodness we don’t have to crate around those wheels everywhere we go!
At your service,
Judith
