Rand Fishkin Inbound 17 Reflection

I recently recieved my Hubspot Inbound Marketing Certification. I enjoyed this Ted Talk as I am starting to implement inbound skills in my classes and at my current internship. Here are my thoughts on the video:

I thought that this video was very interesting in that it brought a new perspective to topics that I had not previously considered. I agree that cultural conditioning has grown to play a huge role in marketing whether we know it or not. I thought that his points about the hardest to measure marketing tactics made a lot of sense. I like how he presented some options to combat this like Google Trends.

I agree with Fishkin’s theories. I think that they are timely and relevant. Some of his presentation seemed a little over done but the concepts were applicable to the changing culture of marketing. There are bias in the strategies and tactics are seen as normal. I think that money does play a large role in measurability. However, I also think that some aspects of the cultural and bias of marketing were exaggerated to an extent. What he said makes sense, but for the areas where there was no data, such as the “not-conspiracy” theory.

Looking at trends and using data will be helpful in mitigating bias. When there is research and data it is essential that it drives your reasoning and actions. I also think that it is important to know that digital world is changing just as fast as the cultural world and what you think maybe suddenly become out of date. Using the hard to measure marketing tactics and then listening to the results, qualitative or quantitative, will be key to mitigating bias. I think that using the audience will continue to become a powerful tool.I do not think that it is role dependent. Everyone should be responsible and striving to mitigate bias, one person cannot do it alone. However, the digital marketer holds a higher level of responsibility because they are in charge of the actions that feed directly to the public and customers. Mitigating bias would be more efficient is more people in the work team were involved and on the same page.

I think that digital marketers play a larger role in shaping public perceptions than we think. With such a huge percentage of the market being digital consumers there is a large influx of digital intake. With the large intake people are subconsciously and consciously disseminating messages and bias from digital marketers. I would stay that in 2018 digital marketers forming public perception more than traditional marketing. I think that is a switch that is relatively new.