An article from the Wall Street Journal titled Wanted: Online-Media Expertise discusses the "shortage of advertising talent with digital-media experience". As Stewart Barry, a media and internet analyst at ThinkEquity Partners says, "This is not a demand-or a supply-constrained market. It is a human-capital-constrained market. There is more demand for expertise than there is expertise".
We'd also like to add marketing and public relations to this list of shortages - particularly in the human resource marketplace. At HRmarketer.com, we are fortunate to work with hundreds of forward thinking HR and employee benefit suppliers who understand the importance of online or digital media and how to use Web 2.0 and Marketing PR technologies to achieve their marketing and PR goals. But it is still surprising how many marketing and PR professionals (and PR agencies) seem to ignore the importance of online media. We touched upon this topic in a recent posting titled More Evidence on the Importance of Online Visibility.
So while we can really appreciate the WSJ article on the shortage of advertising talent with digital-media experience, perhaps a follow-up story can be about the shortage of companies that are actually looking for digital-media talent!
But the masses are beginning to catch on, as pointed out in a recent blog by Gord Hotchkiss titled All Hands on Deck! Search Marketing is Crossing the Chasm who writes in response to a consensus amongst SEM providers that their sales leads are more often Fortune 1000's than the latest online start-up: "My God!...Search is crossing the chasm!"
Mr. Hotchkiss goes on to describe the "chasm": "Geoffrey Moore's book, Crossing the Chasm, belongs on that small and select shelf of "Must Reads" in technology marketing. It explores the fundamental break between early adopter and mainstream markets, and why so many companies founder in trying to make the transition. For the ones that do, the reward is a sudden firestorm of demand....."
At HRmarketer, we touched upon the same topic in our recent blog Are you an Innovator or a Laggard with Web 2.0? Does it Matter?
We also notice the masses are coming. Last year we maybe received one or two calls a quarter from companies wanting help with SEO, online marketing and other Marketing PR type tactics. Today, we get several inquirees a day as more companies are realizing why online visibility is more important than print visibility.
But as we wait for the masses to fully adopt to Marketing PR tactics, there is a tremendous opportunity for those who already "get it" to continue to further themselves from the pack. In other words, don't let up.