Your Network is Your Net Worth!
As we now enter the final stretch of the semester, it is time to reflect on the Marketing Seminar series. This course has given us students the opportunity to get insights about marketing through professionals currently working in the industry. The weekly seminars have been an excellent gateway for students to interact and connect with experienced professionals; something that would be tricky for us to do on our own.
I followed up with Caroline Berryman and Dante Sellers by connecting with them on LinkedIn. They were the two speakers that inspired me the most as their presentations were engaging and I enjoyed their style of storytelling.
They also had the two most interesting case studies which were on the following topics:
York Region Wildlife Discovery – Where our task was to generate ideas for communicating discoveries like this in the future and discussing the best digital marketing tactics.
Toronto Raptors – Where our task was to create a social campaign from start to finish to get fans to purchase a new blackout colorway jersey, and wear it to opening night.
In both case studies, we had a productive group discussion and I was the group member that presented to the class on both occasions.
One thing that was common with every seminar was that all the speakers emphasized the importance of networking. Each speaker also informed us about their career path and a summary of the journey that got them to where they are today. Speakers like Caroline Berryman told us about the career options we can explore in the public sector and Dante Sellers told us about how he went from studying filmmaking to a career in marketing.
Through this course, I realized and learned that I was not utilizing the power of networking effectively. Although I had a LinkedIn account, I rarely used it and disliked the platform. Since I already had a job and did not require LinkedIn for any real reason at the time, I stayed away from it. On rare occasions, I would open up LinkedIn only to find clichéd posts and people being disingenuous. None of the jobs I have ever gotten were through LinkedIn or any other job board.
I am someone who prefers in-person interactions and networking with people in real life. The idea of sending a person you have never met a connection request on LinkedIn would make me feel uncomfortable. I would always think to myself “why would this senior executive or director of this company want to associate with a fresh graduate?” “What am I offering in return to them?” but things started to change during this semester.
With the learnings from the Marketing Seminar and advice from other professors, I decided to give LinkedIn another shot. After having to reset my password since it had been so long that I had forgotten what it was, I updated my profile and cleaned up my connection list. I wanted to start fresh so I removed any person who I did not know or had no commonality with. Doing this improved my feed and I was now seeing posts that were valuable or posts from people I know.
This course also gave me a lot of opportunities to be the person that presented the learnings from the case study. I was able to practice speaking and presenting which has given me the confidence to be able to do this in the future. When it comes to marketing, I have learned that today’s marketer must be agile and a person who can pivot into different roles. I have networked with some key people in the industry like Leah Gaucher Director of Public Relations & Communications at OverActive Media. I added Leah on LinkedIn last year and have met her on two separate occasions but decided to reach out to her recently. The marketing seminar inspired me to rekindle the connection and develop a stronger relationship with her as I could potentially work with her in the future. Apart from that, I have had coffee chats with classmates like Marquis Richards and one on one meetings with Professor Danny Smith.
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