What is your vision of marketing in relation to your role in the company?
Finally, even in companies in Friuli Venezia Giulia, the need for an internal marketing office is starting to be increasingly felt, an aspect that could not be taken for granted until a decade ago. For me, marketing is research and analysis, planning, offer and verification. It is a complete cycle that permeates the entire life of the product and enhances it. To make these phases work as best as possible, an active exchange with different company departments is necessary, which is often not yet clearly understood. Marketing and communication must become central to the activities of companies because they are not functions in themselves and isolated from other activities.
Why did you choose to pursue a path related to the field of communication?
At the end of the 90s in Italy we began to talk concretely about communication and how it would take on more and more weight both in business processes and in people's lives. So I enrolled at the University of Trieste, choosing the faculty of Communication Sciences with a specialization in Business. The choice turned out to be a winning one, there were many of us but 90% of us later found work in the field for which we had studied. Looking back I clearly see the stages of a path that led me to Maddalena: from the publishing house to the advertising agency, from the science park to the trade association, to then arrive at the service company and finally the production one. I thus had the opportunity to address these issues from different points of view. I recently chose to further broaden my personal and professional background: following a training course on the topic of sustainability, I added to my role as marketing manager that of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility): a priority activity which, in my opinion, can enrich Maddalena's discussion and involvement with stakeholders.
In your opinion, which social network is stronger in Italy and which is less so?
Considering the average age of the population in Italy, the strongest social network is still Facebook, but if we limited ourselves to considering the strongest social network and the weakest social network we would be making a mistake. If I want to speak to a young audience I will focus more on platforms like TikTok and Instagram and less on other platforms like Facebook. If I then have to make a choice on a personal level, of all the social networks I prefer Instagram: I love photography, I like to find inspiration from what other people find beautiful and interesting. I like to immerse myself in a different point of view and I believe that Instagram at the moment offers me this more than other social networks.
How much importance does your company give to social networks?
Our company has chosen to limit its social presence to LinkedIn and YouTube: since it is a B2B activity, I believe that this is the best choice for Maddalena Spa. A professional social network like LinkedIn becomes essential for maintaining contact and communicating with other professionals and companies in the sector and in the supply chain. At the same time, being present on YouTube allows us to easily disseminate technical content which, with the help of video tutorials and animated infographics, is easily understandable and accessible to professionals. This choice was made precisely from the awareness that every social network must be approached with particular attention and care.
Social media is a constantly changing professional tool, have you ever collaborated with professionals in this discipline?
Of course! In over 15 years of activity in the marketing and communications field I have often had the opportunity to work with various professionals in the social media sector: from agencies to freelancers, through trainers. And they have always been informative and interesting comparisons. I believe that it is essential to stay up to date on what is a constantly evolving topic but also that nothing can replace the experience of a person who knows the company from the inside: the external expert who has worked on many different projects offers professionalism and an outside-the-box point of view, but knowing the company reality remains essential to describe the company in a unique and personalized way. Therefore I believe a collaboration between these two figures is necessary.
How do you plan to develop corporate-digital communication for the future?
People are immersed in social media, they know when companies communicate honestly and when communication is set up, constructed to mislead and sensationalist. Those who also communicate via social media should, in my opinion, take all this into account and seek a perfect balance in communication so as to build a relationship of trust with their audiences. I believe that the development of Maddalena's digital communication in the future must follow this principle, combining my two hats of marketing and sustainability!