In the following video, CRMSoftware.TV holds a roundtable discussion with marketing experts from HubSpot and Silverpop. See what they have to say about what colleges should be teaching marketing majors to equip them for success in the evolving marketing landscape. Click here to watch!
Are their assumptions true? Are students not learning enough of the technical side of marketing? I myself am a Journalism student studying Advertising and Public Relations and have learned about the basics of search engine optimization (SEO), blogging and Google analytics, along with all the other basics like advertising & public relations techniques, design, etc., in my course work. We’ve also learned about programs like Hootsuite that can help manage your social media accounts, but we never learned of programs that help manage & optimize content, online marketing analytics and leads like HubSpot does.
The other point that stuck out to me was about students who are studying science or math are often more equipped to be better marketers, since being able to read data is extremely important. Since I study at a four-year college, I am required to take a certain number of credits in science and math. This has helped me understand and process data, but these courses have not been incorporated into business or journalism classes. If your business can’t understand the data that is coming in about the content you put out, there’s no way to tell if it is successful or not. So, colleges should prepare students to understand this data.
Now that I’m at my internship at Weidert Group, I have learned the importance of optimizing content through on-page meta data, promotion of content through strategic social media efforts and all the other components that make online marketing successful through the disciplines of Inbound Marketing. I believe colleges should continue to teach the basic fundamentals and attempt to keep up with ongoing marketing trends, but the only way you can truly learn about them is by having real world experience in the form of internships.
What do you think? Have you had an intern or recent graduate that already knows what he or she is doing when it comes to the latest forms of online marketing? Do you believe colleges are preparing students for the true marketing world? Please share your thoughts on how students can be better prepared to help YOUR business!
Topics: Search Engine Optimization, Marketing Technology, Inbound Marketing
