“Keep up to date with digital” – advice from top marketing gurus

Posted on January 29, 2021

To kick off our first Masterclass of 2021, we were joined by James Dale (Managing Director) and Benji Haigh (Head of Client Services) from Sine Digital, a digital marketing agency specialising in entertainment, leisure, and fashion. James and Benji gave listeners a whirlwind tour of the rise of social media and of future digital trends.

Since the language of digital marketing is rapidly changing, Benji and James started the session with a useful jargon buster section to dispel any confusion around the terms that are widely used in the sector. They explained concepts such as the difference between organic and paid advertising, PCC, display advertising, programme advertising, and SEO. James highlighted the difference between an organic and paid social reach, and explained why social media giants’ strategy of throttling organic reach was vital for their business models.

The pair then went on to describe the current trends in digital advertising. The digital advertising industry has become a part of our daily lives and will only grow going forwards. The rise of TikTok and Instagram feeds has left a trend for vertical video (in contrast to the traditional landscape orientation used for film), and have contributed to shorter attention spans, leaving digital marketers to work out how best to capture fragmented attentions in a matter of seconds.

“The days of the one-minute TV ad, where you can tell a whole story in a minute, are gone. We’re now looking at six seconds. But you don’t have to tell a whole story in six seconds; you can tell micro-moments of your story instead…” – James Dale

James and Benji shared their top tips on how to impress your employer in an interview for a digital marketing role. Many large companies are not always familiar with the latest digital trends, so demonstrating you have a grasp on the following areas can really impress a prospective employer:

  • The rise of growing platforms like TikTok, and the influence of tech giants popular in East Asian economies like Tencent and ByteDance.
  • The feud between Apple and Facebook – Facebook-owned apps won’t be allowed to share data between them by default on iPhones.
  • The working of programmatic advertising, and innovative ways to apply real-time ads.
  • The growth of augmented reality (AR) apps and integrating AR into advertising.
Potential use of AR on mobile in fashion advertising. Image courtesy of Sine Digital.

The digital market moves very quickly but there is a lot of research you can do to show you are staying on top of the latest trends. For example, Benji recommended the Facebook blueprint certification which homes in on understanding the fundamentals of this new digital era. He also highlighted the usefulness of YouTube to find out solutions to the small details and problems that people have faced. He recommends Ben Heath for Facebook ads and MEASURE SCHOOL for tracking and another useful resource: Ad world conference. To keep up with the latest industry news he recommends The Drum, Ad Exchanger, Social media today and Econsultancy as great resources.

“Digital moves so quickly that there’s always a little angle that you can get in on to say ‘I’m up to date, and I might even know a bit more than you about this’…” – James Dale

We cannot thank James and Benji enough for their highly informative Masterclass on digital marketing. You can watch back the full Masterclass here.