EPISODE 30 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: The Content I Consume to Stay up to Date in the Marketing World (Podcasts, Books, Courses and More!)
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
One of my favorite questions to ask guests and other marketing experts that get on this podcast is who do you follow? What causes have you done? What do you read? Who do you listen to? I love learning. I think it's so important to remain open to learning new skills and keeping up with the latest developments, especially when it comes to digital marketing, where things can move so quickly. There are times where I stopped consuming content because I hit a point where I'm using it as an excuse not to be implementing though. So if you're at that stage, put this podcast down and go and take some damn action. If you are someone who consumes and implements, please hang around because I'm about to take you through my top books, courses, podcasts, and other people that I love to follow.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
All right, let's start with books. I am a total bookworm. Always have been. I was that kid lining up at the new Harry Potter book at 6:00 AM in the middle of winter. Some of my faves include Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, the COO Facebook. This book really changed my life. I know people say that all willy nilly, but I reckon I've purchased a good five or six copies to send to girlfriends over the past year or so. The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss is a cult classic, and while I do feel like some of the concepts haven't aged well, there are still so many gems in there. It really gets you thinking about what you really need to be doing in your business versus what it's more cost effective for you delegate or outsource.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
A book that hasn't really hit the mainstream in the way that the other two have is a book called Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. I completely bungled his last name there. These guys wrote another book I haven't actually read. It's called Sprint. You may have heard of Google's design sprints. They're really famous in the tech world. Well, these are the guys that created those sprints at Google, and now they facilitate them in companies all over the world. This book really changed my thinking about what my working week and day actually looks like. How can I optimize my time, energy and focus? I'm an audio book and Kindle fan, but for this book, I really recommend you actually purchase the hard copy because you want to scribble all over it.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
I could have gone on about books for hours and when I am reading something I love, I will post it as an Instagram story. I've created a story highlight on my profile you can check out, get some more recommendations. My handle is kiss_marketing.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Alrighty, moving on to courses. When I first started on this journey ... Oh my God, did I just say journey? Let's rephrase, shall we? When I first started my business, the most influential person for me was Rachel Peterson. And I've actually interviewed her in an earlier podcast. She's known as the queen of social media and she has a membership called Social Media United. I was a member for around three years and it is super helpful for anyone wanting to become a social media manager. Other courses that are skill-specific that I recommend include Facebook's Blueprint and Google's Digital Garage. These are credited by Facebook and Google respectively, and will provide you with some great basics. And I believe they're free as well and you get a certificate at the end. Fancy.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
When it comes to any things more in depth though, I recommend checking out Udemy, that's U-D-E-M-Y. They always have a ton of sales. You can find out courses on specific skills as well, and the instructors are actually amazing in keeping content up to date. So go check that one out. In terms of people I follow, there's so many amazing people in the marketing space, of course, because we're marketers. We know how to get our stuff out there. I love Gary V, Cat Howell, Amy Porterfield, Billy Jean and Marie Forleo to name a few.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Now scrolling through my podcast list, I have a real mixture in here. I consume a lot of podcast content. I spent a lot of time on the road driving between Melbourne and my hometown of Albury–Wodonga and Bermagui. So it's a lot of Ks that I rack up and a lot of podcasts and audio books that are listened to. So some aren't just business related. Does that matter? Let me throw a few at you that I regularly listen to. So first up I am totally true crime obsessed. So in that category, I listened to Case File, True Crime Conversations, and The Trial Went Cold. There's a whole other sort of limited edition series in there as well around specific cases that I have really got stuck into also.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
When it comes to mass marketing podcasts, I'm a fan of Amy Porterfield's Online Marketing Made Easy podcast, although I find that she has niched down so much to just online membership and course credits that the knowledge that I can now take from this doesn't really apply to a lot of our client base who are local service based businesses. So if you are a business falling under that category, I wouldn't recommend it because you'll just get Shiny Object Syndrome and spend a whole heap of time creating content that is not going to be relevant to your audience.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Neil Patel has a podcast called Marketing School, so he's another really well known marketer, which can be good, as is the Gary V audio experience. Other general business or productivity podcasts that I love include the StartUp Creative podcasts with Kaylene Langford, Real AF, that stands for Andy Frisella, How I Built This and How I Work.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
You know what? There's actually heaps. I'll put together a download for you that you'll be able to print off. It'll get uploaded to kissmarketing.com.au/free if you want to check that out. I'll just do a big brain dump of all of the podcasts and books and these people as well with some links that come to mind. So if you've got any that you absolutely love that I should know about, please slide on into my DMs on Instagram. My handle is kiss_marketing. Thanks for listening guys. Until next week.