What will the face of marketing look like once the recession ends? Any ideas at this point would only be speculation, but many industry veterans feel that the face is changing.

The recession will give some companies an excuse to oppose the changes in the industry. According to Stephanie Holland this would be a crucial mistake.

Stephanie Holland, executive creative director at Holland and Holland Advertising, has spent the last year immersing herself in Twitter and the social networking world.

“I have been in the industry for 25 years and when I started we did everything by hand,” said Holland. Then came computers and we resisted because its was totally different from what we knew. Now we have social networking and we are resisting yet again and so many will have to learn the hard way.”

“When you go back in history and look at our past recessions, you can see a reoccurring trend among brands and their marketing practices,” said Holland. “The companies who can figure out a way to be innovative will experience great success when the recession ends. A good example would be Hyundai. They were the first ones to implement the give back your car if you can't make your payments program.“

Those who question the power of the social network and its prevalence in the future industry of marketing should take note of the rumors swirling around about a Google purchase of Twitter. Google purchased Blogger from the same creators of Twitter just five years ago. The chances of a purchase seem feasible at this point. This is serious stuff.

So how important will social media be in the future? According to Holland it will be everything.

“Social media is going to be king and any student whether public relations, marketing, design or anyone who has anything to do with advertising, their knowledge of social media will separate them,” said Holland. “It is a media in its infancy so now is the time for any student to embrace that.”

“Capitalize on the fact that right now very few people and companies are embracing it, but it is the way things are going,” said Holland. “By the time those companies really realize it’s time to embrace it, they are going to be looking for people that know something about it.”

Holland thinks that newly grads in the industry have reason to be optimistic even with a weak job market.

“If you can come in and be the product that is admittedly less inexpensive, but you're fresh and you have this knowledge of social media, you are going to look incredibly appealing to that employer,” said Holland. “Not only are they getting something they can better afford right now, but they are getting something that is going to take them into the future.”

Holland offers encouraging words for graduating seniors in the field, but what does this mean for everyone else. The answer is everything.

Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster and teacher at Stanford, predicted the success of the mp3 player. He is now forecasting what he calls the “creator economy”. It is an economy in which the economic actor both creates and consumes at the same time. He cites YouTube, Twitter and Wikipedia as examples. Read the essay
here.

Experts believe that social media will be king. It is important that students be ready when companies begin to widely accept this change.

Read more about Stephanie Holland and her expertise on marketing to women on her blog here.


Find more videos like this on The Loveliest Village