Who is Şule Şahin? Can you tell us a little about yourself? What is your professional adventure that led you to digital media consultancy?

I’m Sule Sahin. I am 27 years old, born and raised in Bursa. If I were to express myself in one word, it would definitely be ‘curious’. Thanks to this feature, I never limited myself, always researched, took risks, wanted to develop and learn.

My career life, which started with academic studies in the field of accounting, has been continuing with the field of digital marketing, which I met a little by chance and a little by curiosity for about a year and said ‘this is it’.

What is the importance of digital marketing consultancy for brands?

Being in the digital world offers great opportunities for businesses to carry their activities beyond borders. With digital marketing consultancy, brands do not have to wait for their customers for the promotion and sale of their products and services. It takes its place in all electronic devices and media tools of potential customers with advertising strategies prepared by digital marketing experts. In addition to traditional marketing, digital marketing consultancy saves businesses time and cost. Therefore, it aims to make more sales with less effort. It gets faster results from potential customers within the scope of digital marketing activities and helps them respond faster to their requests and needs. It can get ahead of competitors who are not yet in digital, and enables companies that continue their digital activities to follow their work more easily.

Which strategies does a brand’s digital marketing specialist mainly apply to promote the brand’s online presence, brand awareness and product and service?

First of all, social media platforms suitable for the brand must be ready. Because users on the internet always do research before shopping for products or services. We need to introduce the brand identity to potential customers in the best and correct way in social media and give them confidence. At this point, especially social proof and references play an important role. Comments and messages about the brand on the internet should be followed to learn the impression we leave on users. The website of the business owners, if any, is checked. In order to provide the fastest and most reliable service to potential customers, efforts should be made to maximise the quality of the website. It should not be forgotten that the algorithm also follows these elements.

A low quality, slow website reduces the quality of the brand’s advertising and may prevent it from getting the results it wants. In our preliminary work with brands, we explain the importance of media tools to our customers and present the website quality results to them. At the point where all media tools give good results, we create digital marketing strategies for the needs of brands and start working.

Is the digital marketing strategy of social media accounts, websites and e-commerce sites different?

Absolutely. The basis of our work is to know the brand and its customers well. It is not right to try to apply the same advertising strategy to a corporate company and an e-commerce company. In addition, although they are in the same sector, we also have customers who demand different studies. Some of them reach us for more sales, some to go up in Google rankings, some to promote their brand in the best way in digital. It is our duty to determine digital marketing strategies that will meet the demands and needs of brands and to continuously develop these strategies.

What are the dangers waiting for brands that do not need digital media consultancy?

The biggest danger is being forgotten. Nowadays, you are recognised as much as your presence on the internet. While their competitors carry their brands to everywhere where there is internet, businesses that lag behind in digital work will not go beyond their own neighbourhood, they will count where they are, and if they are lucky, they will survive with certain sales.

Business owners who want to move their brand to digital but try to manage this process alone can be exhausted by physical work on the one hand and digital work on the other, or give up at the first digital obstacle they encounter. Because the internet is like an ocean. If you want to move forward without a route, you will get lost.

What are the common misconceptions about digital marketing consultancy?

I can say it is the profession itself. Although it is a sector that is frequently encountered with its activities, unfortunately, the name and profession of ‘digital marketing’ still does not have a clear image in people’s minds. When it comes to digital marketing, people think of e-commerce activities such as Amazon and Trendyol. In fact, the strangest question I received in this profession was ‘Do you sell electronic cigarettes?’. There are too many business owners who are unaware that the advertisements in many media tools are the work of the digital marketing sector. They want their products and services to appear on all digital platforms like competing companies, but they don’t know the name of what they want. For this reason, we definitely make a preliminary interview before starting our work with businesses.

I tell businesses who I am, what digital marketing is and how I work. Because as much as I know my client, my client should also know me and be aware of the work I will do for him/her.

What do you think about the development of artificial intelligence? How will it affect digital marketing and its experts? Do you think artificial intelligence will replace digital marketing experts?

For the moment, I am very happy with the development of artificial intelligence, because the development of artificial intelligence means that digital studies gain importance. As a digital marketing specialist, artificial intelligence has a great place in our work. Content ideas, texts, animations… These are just the beginning. I think that people who work in digital marketing and similar fields and do not benefit from artificial intelligence will be far behind the experts who develop their work with artificial intelligence in the future, even if they do not realise it now. If we are going to carry out digital studies, we need to be able to follow the developments in that world.

As long as this continues, artificial intelligence will continue to be used as a tool, not a goal. Of course, artificial intelligence continues to develop rapidly and surprise us every day. If we do not develop and keep up with this change, we will lose this war.

What should be done to get the right digital marketing training? Is it also necessary to learn artificial intelligence applications that will be used in the future?

First of all, they should definitely reach the experts of this subject. Unfortunately, not every person who receives digital marketing training has enough equipment to provide training in this sector with the name of an expert. In addition to a certain knowledge, there must be working experience. It is difficult to carry out studies in this field by watching part-part videos on social media and Youtube. People who are already trying to progress in this way feel that they are doing wrong because they cannot fully understand the logic of working. I know because I felt this way in my first digital marketing training. When I received a second training from a different expert, I was able to say ‘okay’ and continue, otherwise I had already quit. However, education never ends in digital studies. Getting a good digital marketing education only creates a solid foundation. However, in this process where digital studies are developing rapidly, it is not enough to proceed only with basic information.

Especially artificial intelligence brings very different dimensions to the sector. Staying behind these developments means staying behind in the profession. In order to be a good digital marketing expert and represent our clients’ brands in the best way, we need to be open to learning and development.