5 marketers to follow in 2021 [updated]
Marketing as a field is developing at a fast speed. It is crucial for practitioners to stay updated with new innovations. One way to keep your finger on the pulse is to follow what others in the field are doing.
Emphasis on the word doing. Do not focus on what others are saying.
Personally, I have learned a lot from following others’ work, but a lot less from others’ words. Online courses on digital marketing rarely offer me anything wonderous, but the ways in which those online courses are sold can teach me a lot more.
Here is a list of five marketing practitioners worth following in 2021.
Gary Vaynerchuk
It is not necessary to agree with Gary, but I have to admit that his presence on social media and his personal brand have been developing quickly.
If you are not familiar with Vaynerchuk, you can quickly learn about his path from his Keynotes. Some of the main points are:
- Running the company Wine Library
- Investing on Facebook and Twitter at an early phase
- Founding the marketing agency VaynerMedia
- Aims to buy New York Jets
- Constantly builds his personal brand with his own name on social media
Without commenting on the content itself, many companies have a lot to learn about his and his company’s marketing.
When comparing his own and VaynerMedia’s, the company’s in which he works as a CEO, presence on Facebook, one can see that the latest post from VaynerMedia has been published in November 2018. On the other hand, he is using his own Facebook-page really actively, publishing 2–10 times a day.
In my opinion, Gary is well up-to-date on utilizing social media. He especially seems to know how to use social media in brand building.
Ryan Deiss
I don’t actually follow Ryan Deiss as a person on social media. However, he has founded a company called digitalmarketer.com, and I find the company’s way to market its training materials and consulting very interesting.
Everyone can get familiar with their websites and services here. I think their funnel has been built well, keeping the marketers in mind. I have been following the development of their doings and building a community around the business with great interest.
Their Facebook-page is an example of how little is the organic reach of company posts is even if the company is well-known in its field. Therefore, it is not very wise to focus on organic posting on companies’ Facebook-pages. In some cases, organic posting can still be reasonable, but it should not be the first priority in utilizing Facebook.
Wilco de Kreij
Wilco de Kreij is a marketer and an entrepreneur with two companies: Connectio and Upviral. He does all the Facebook-marketing for those companies using his personal Facebook-page.
I have been especially impressed by marketing planned for Upviral because it has been interesting to follow it. However, I have been following it only for a couple of months, so I am not that familiar with the older content.
Rand Fishkin
For most people, Rand may be familiar from Whiteboard Friday on YouTube. At this point, I am not completely sure how he does marketing. However, he just couldn’t be left out of this list because of his experience in SEO.
With his name, you can find lots of excellent material about social media optimization especially if you are a beginner in SEO. I definitively recommend following him on social media.
Seth Godin
Seth may be best known from his books, but I find his blog interesting as well. Content is being published every day and the posts vary in length.
Getting familiar with the marketing of altMBA and The Marketing Seminar helps to understand Seth’s marketing philosophy. I find his way to ponder brand building interesting and useful even though he can get rather philosophical when thinking about the goal of marketing. Seth does not always see fast growth as a goal worth pursuing.
Everyone can get familiar with Seth’s ideas and choose whether they are useful or not. However, I have been inspired by his thoughts.
In summary
There are many skilled marketers worth following out there. However, the most important thing is not who you follow but what you learn from them. I believe it is useful to focus on what others do and not on what they are talking about. The persons on this list are not only skilled at what they do but they are also able to discuss their work in a way that interests the wider audience. Some less-known but nevertheless skilled practitioners may encounter the problem that they aren’t at their best at speaking in a way that interests bigger audiences.
I hope this blog inspired you to keep yourself updated with the development of the field.