Kristjan Hauksson: State of Digital Summer School, Learning from the Experts
Specials

Kristjan Hauksson: State of Digital Summer School, Learning from the Experts

2nd September 2014

This summer we are taking you back to school! We are focussing on education in Digital Marketing: what is the best education, what background is important? Questions you will see answered throughout the summer by those you can learn from the best: the experts. Those that already earned their stripes and are now willing to share with you how they got there and what you should do to get that far as well.

Today it’s time for Kristjan Mar Hauksson. Kristjan is the European Search Personality of the year and has a track record in international search, search marketing in general and reputation management. He knows like no other what it takes to become succesful.

More about Kristjan here.

Summer School

What type of education did you have?

The foundation of my education is technical, I started learning electronics in collage and then moved to system engineering with focus on Microsoft. From there I moved over to marketing studied Internet Marketing and Global Marketing, parallel to brushings regularly up on my programming skills by taking courses in various programming languages such as Java, Basic and .Net and then more HTML related languages like HTML, Javascript and XML as a sample.

kristjan-mar-haukssonIs your education related to what you do now?

Yes, I would say that. As my initial focus was on organic visibility, I soon realized that my technical foundation was very helpful when it came to reverse engineer Google and the other search engines at the time, the good old Altavista days 🙂

How did you get into digital marketing?

Started as an interest in creating web sites and then developed to marketing them. This was close to 100% in line with my education developing from tech to marketing.

Did you need extra schooling? If so, what type of extra schooling did you get?

All my schooling has been more to have on my CV rather than needing it. My best schooling has always been a dialog with friends and colleagues in the industry were we share ideas and thoughts. Problem solve each other so to speak.

How do you think the state of education in marketing is these days? Do marketers learn what they need to learn?

I have still not found a marketing educated person that comes out of school knowing it all, but I see signs of better and better foundation and that is the best sign of the development I can see in schools.

How do you feel about online training courses?

Love them, especially if I can do them on my own time and they are open, transparent and up to date.

What is your tip for those that want to learn more?

Be on the lookout; ask around when you are evaluating education. The internet actually works when you are looking for endorsement and help to take decision on what education to take. It’s a long time since I realized that we are all miniature Guttenberg’s inventing this wonderful new “industry” called Internet Marketing. We are all more or less both teachers and pupils.

What resources are best to learn marketing?

For me it is Twitter, when I filter through what comes on my channel I get to date updates on what is happening in this fast developing industry.

What’s the last lesson in marketing you learned?

The last lesson I learned was actually at a conference in Iceland RIMC 2014, hearing knowledgeable people talk about the actual cases they have dealt with, how they used various technics and tactics to gain success.

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Written By
Bas van den Beld is an award winning Digital Marketing consultant, trainer and speaker. He is the founder of State of Digital and helps companies develop solid marketing strategies.
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