digital marketing

The evolution of TheWayoftheWeb

December 1, 2010 By Dan Thornton

If you’re reading this on the blog rather than as an RSS feed, you may well have already spotted the design of the site has changed somewhat.

There’s a few reasons for the evolution, but the main one is that I’m currently supporting myself (and my family) through freelancing for a number of clients, and therefore it made sense to link up my main presence on the internet to the freelance services I offer.

Plus I was never really happy with the Cutline theme I’d been using – the theme itself is fairly old and isn’t really being developed any more. Plus the design itself seemed to encourage me to overload both sidebars with far too much junk.

It’s part of a conscious effort to re-evaluate everything I’ve been doing and working on to ensure I’m devoting my efforts to the right things and in the right order, which at the moment is:

Ensuring my freelance clients get the best possible service.
Everything else, including my personal business projects….

It’s very much a work in progress, so expect things to keep changing as time goes by – particularly in the run-up to Christmas. Some sites will be mothballed, some projects will either be finished or ditched, and I’m slimming down some of my other commitments, or looking at ways to evolve them fairly quickly.

With that in mind, it’s probably a good time to get in touch if you need work in the near future, have any interesting opportunities that you feel I might be interested in, or might be interested in buying the 140Char domain…

Mixing marketing, technology and more…

October 20, 2010 By Dan Thornton

There’s an interesting presentation, post and comment thread on Mashable at the moment regarding the idea of a new job role within companies – Chief Marketing Technologist.

Scott Brinker, president and CTO of ion interactive, presented the idea at the Pivot Conference, and although I often think there are far too many titles and buzzwords already in existence, there may well be a compelling enough case for this one…

The three missions Brinker outlines for the CMT are:

Translating Strategy into Technology
Choreographing Data and Technology across Marketing
Infusing Tech into the DNA of Marketing

There are already people doing these jobs, and plenty of comments to that effect on the Mashable post. It’s similar in some ways to the roles I’ve had, except this example places much more emphasis on the technical and engineering skills of the CMT – I’ve tended to learn as much as I can, and do as much as I can manage without breaking things, but ultimately leave the heavy lifting to people far more talented on the technical side. Plus in my case, there’s probably the need for an additional letter, becoming CMCT – Chief Marketing and Content Technologist, to include my skills and experience in creating content in a way which hopefully engages people, but also works for SEO etc.

Plus I don’t think choreographing data and infusing technology should be limited to just the Marketing Dept unless you’re in one of the biggest global companies. You need to be able to work with all departments, and infuse the value of data, technology and integration throughout the company for it to work effectively. Otherwise you’ll have powerful marketing with no backbone…

But I do think there should be a recognition of the need for digital and technical skills in marketing which bridge the gap between traditional marketing, social media/co-creation, data and analytics, and internal collaboration. Certainly more than being seen as ‘the geeky one’ by the rest of the marketing team.

The other argument would be to do away with traditional titles altogether, and either just learn what everyone does (As practised by Gore), or just letting people call themselves whatever is simplest and most descriptive. In my case, the best I’ve come up with so far is Digital Content Creation and Distribution Specialist, which isn’t ideal, but at least encapsulates some of the fact I can go from sourcing and creating content to ensuring it’s published on the right type of platform, appears on the right screens, and is given the best chance of popularity via social media, search, advertising etc. CMT might be a better alternative than the world’s largest business card.

Media people on Twitter – an interview with me from April

July 20, 2009 By Dan Thornton

I don’t think I’ve posted the interview that I did with George Hopkin back in April as part of his ‘Media People on Twitter’ series, but as he’s kindly agreed to share the whole series, I thought I’d start with myself!

‘More Twitter hints, tips, etc. from power Twitterers from the world of UK media. This time it’s Dan Thornton, Community Marketing Manager at Bauer Media (Heat, Empire and many others). (NB: I’ve since left, and joined Absolute Radio as Digital Marketing Manager)

* What did you think about the concept when you first heard about Twitter?

The idea made sense for quick communications with friends, but like the founders, I couldn’t imagine how it would grow in terms of size – and especially the ways to use it. The uses of hashtags are staggering in terms of potential.

* Do you recall your first tweet?

Thankfully no. Probably ‘Hello’ or something similar.

* How did you use Twitter to begin with?

Like most people, I signed up, posted a couple of messages, and then ignored it for a bit because I didn’t see the value.

That changed with my first @ messages, and suddenly I became addicted to being able to communicate so easily with so many people

* How has your use of Twitter changed?

It hasn’t really. It probably should, as I’ve gone from a small group of friends to having over 2,000 following and followers. But I find it hard to only talk about marketing or the internet. And at least this way, people won’t be surprised or disappointed in the long term when I talk about motorcycles or Xbox instead!

* What do you want from Twitter?

From a personal point of view I just want to be able to interact with more great people, and be able to build better relationships with them.

From a business/tech point of view, I’d like to see more disclosure from businesses of their direct results to be able to build up a bigger body of proven evidence, and I hope the use of Twitter will speed up the changes needed in almost every business strategy to become more relevant and useful to consumers.

And a way to delete multiple DMs at once!

* Have you attended a tweetup?

Yep. Some small gatherings, and the Twinterval organised by the founders of Twestival – really annoys me I’ve missed both Twestivals so far due to work/family commitments.

* Have you evangelised Twitter? If so, any success?

I’ve promoted it to friends and colleagues, and seen a reasonable number join – although the mainstream media coverage has done more if I’m honest!

I’ve also introduced several titles to using it, and the early indications are that it’s becoming a valuable communication tool for marketing, PR, customer service and engagement.

Oh, and I do run a blog dedicated to microblogging (Including Tumblr, Seesmic etc alongside Twitter) at http://www.140char.com. (Update: Now no longer running, but all posts have been imported onto TheWayoftheWeb..net)

* Do you have any self-imposed policies regarding your use of Twitter?

Not really – just apply a bit of common sense before I mention anything regarding work or personal items about my family. I’m pretty open about myself, but I have to respect my employers, colleagues and family.

* How do you see your use of Twitter developing this year?

I think the only change for my personal account is that I’m following less people – I’m reaching the limit of how many people I could hope to have meaningful interactions with.

For business use, I can’t really say until the Twitter monetisation plans are in place, but I’d expect it to be a core part of almost every digital marketing plan.

Daniel blogs at http://www.thewayoftheweb.net. And you can follow him on Twitter here.

Interview originally posted at georgehopkin.com.