In some ways my typical weekday has changed little over the last several years, not so much because I’m a creature of habit, which I am, but because my responsibilities are pretty constant. My morning starts early and this is the part of day I need a set routine: I wake up, turn on the oven and let the dogs out. Then comes the important part: I sit for about half an hour while the house is still quiet and read the news.

I don’t read a newspaper (remember those?). For over a decade it’s been one laptop after another. First I check local headlines, then the weather via Wunderground, followed by sports and the national and world news. It’s important to maintain a sense of balance, so for national headlines typically I visit both CNN.com and FoxNews.com. I figure the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, and for the most part my reactions are kind of “blah”, but I suppose they lean toward positive because my need for information about what’s happening in the world is met. I spend virtually no personal time on any social media platform because I haven’t an interest in doing so, although I communicate with people like my wife regularly through Facebook’s Messenger. I find texting, such as it is, a significant contributor to the degradation of correspondence. I also find it extremely convenient.

By now you’ve probably forgotten the oven, but I haven’t, because it’s time for the (toast, Eggos, raisin bread, whatever) and fruit to be served. This is critical, because I have to wake up my wife’s kids, who are just bundles of joy all the time, but especially in the morning. Breakfast plated, I shower and dress. Then it’s time for email.

Surprisingly, only sixty-seven marketing emails have come through overnight. I blame myself, because if I had been smart enough not to buy something from a store in 2012 I wouldn’t be in this position. It’s pretty rare that any of these catches my attention; for the most part I know both what I want and what I can afford, and I wait on the sale. Rarely do I need reminding. I’ve used GMail for work (G Suite) and personal correspondence since around 2007, and my inbox actually is a lot of inboxes combined. 

I spend about 75% of my time working from home and typically am in the office just one or two days a week. This is pleasant. And speaking of work it’s time to get started. I work in marketing and the digital world. In fact, I’d argue there is little distinction to be made between marketing and digital marketing today, and I suspect they’ll be completely synonymous in the next few years. So an average day for me includes time spent with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MailChimp, Google Analytics and Ads, Slack, Adobe Creative Suite, and others. In addition to these I spend time daily in WordPress (.org) environments. Here mostly I limit myself to front-end stuff like CSS and JavaScript, but occasionally have cause to work in PHP as well.

For my business Twitter and its character limits is secondary at best, and we don’t have a large following or put much effort into it. Facebook is easier to advertise on than Google and a high percentage of our audience uses it, largely in industry-specific private groups. Using MailChimp as an email marketing platform is simple, and provides decent analytics on things like number of clicks, opens, etc. In Adobe I find the most use for Photoshop, which is kind of the industry flagship for photo editing, and Illustrator, which is the same for graphics and vectors. We produce quite a lot of video content, but we outsource its editing. 

One of the most important tools I use is SEMRush, which is a digital marketing suite of services offering analytics reporting, competitor analysis, SEO and more. It’s a paid subscription not unlike MOZ or others, and to me, totally worth the investment. 

From a professional standpoint, my reactions to these generally are positive, and they should be since I’ve chosen the tools over time through both trial and error and research. Still, digital marketing campaigns can be finicky; and I’ve found the rate of return can depend on the smallest of details like wording or placement of a sentence, or the use of one image over another. 

I’ve been doing this stuff in one form or another for nearly twenty years, though in the beginning there was a lot more print. During that time I’ve witnessed the birth and explosion of social media, and I’ve seen the technology change so fast it’s hard to keep up. Paid digital marketing is important and can yield quick results. Done well over time it can help build brand loyalty.