Here is how I stay up to date as a Marketer

Digital Marketers these days are expected to know how to work with every single social media platform, to use every available tool for Pay per Click advertising, and at the same time to stay up to date with everything. 

Is this even possible?

As a marketer who works in the industry for 11 years now, here is what I think about this expectation. 

If you know how to advertise on one social media platform, you’ll know how to do it on any other platform out there. What you don’t know, you learn and you ask your best friend Google, or your marketing colleagues. 

As for staying up to date, there are a few things that I do:

1) I’m following at least 5 industry experts on social media, who always seem to have the inside scoop on what’s happening in the field. My list of experts includes Neil Patel, Mary Smith, Sabri Suby, Michael Stelzner, and John Loomer.

Neil Patel – is constantly posting great tips on LinkedIn, and there is also a blog that you can check out, there is an ocean of useful information. 

Mari Smith is a social media leader, specializing in relationship marketing and Facebook mastery.

I mostly follow her on Facebook to find out what’s new and hot right now 

Sabri Suby – after reading his book “Sell Like Crazy” and seeing an endless number of advertisements about him, I now follow his Youtube channel where he shares some high-quality videos with amazing content. 

Michael Stelzner is an author at Social Media Examiner. You have to check out his LinkedIn profile, he is posting tons of news and articles about social media platforms and more

John Loomer – is a Facebook advertising expert, his blog is amazing, there are so many interesting testing and experiments there as long as new features that were tested by John. 

There are many more other experts in the field, but I simply don’t have the time to follow them all. 

2) I’m a part of marketing communities and forums. This way, if there’s a new trend or bug, I’ll be among the first to find out. For this, I use Facebook groups, both local and international, and I’ve also found the GrowthMentor platform to be a great tool.

I love Facebook marketing groups, people are constantly asking questions and sharing different insights. Once something is up you can figure it out quickly, since everyone is starting to post about the same topic. 

As for GrowthMentor, I heard about them for a while but started to use them recently. It’s an online community where you can schedule a call with different experts in marketing or other fields, to ask them questions or just for brainstorming.

3) I watch Youtube on a daily basis.
Youtube became my daily routine, right after checking the news and getting myself a cup of coffee, I sit down and search for newly posted videos to see what’s trending, what’s new, or research something that I am not sure how to do.

My favorite channels for marketing are:

• Latasha James – she has a great podcast about marketing and social media. 
• Katie Steckly – it’s a super positive channel with a lot of actual tips on “how to”. 
• Sunny Lenarduzzi – she is a great youtube content creator and marketer.

4) I attend online classes

Time is money, so online classes are a great way to stay up to date on industry news and insights.

Platforms like Udemy, Skillshare, or even LinkedIn have a lot of different topics to offer. You can find courses by experts on different levels, and it’s always great to learn something new, develop your skills, or improve your knowledge. 

Recently I fished a course about SEO and even if this is not my specialization, at least now I can understand what SEO is. SEO is a part of the marketing world, and having at least a slight idea of how it works might also help with Pay per Click advertising.