My time here at Coast Digital has been a real eye opener to the world of digital marketing. I have learnt so much about the various roles within a digital marketing company and all of the different processes. Throughout my time here I have got on really well with everyone and have enjoyed working alongside the team and also independently.
During my first week, I shadowed members of the team within their various roles. The roles which I found most interesting were SEO, email marketing, social media and content writing. SEO taught me about how you can affect the rankings of where a company will appear when certain keywords are searched in Google. It was also really fascinating to find out that clicking a company’s sponsored advert will be costing the company money. I will be thinking about my clicks a lot more carefully now! Email marketing was next and I found it really interesting to see the statistical analysis of how much money was generated through different clicking areas on the email. I also saw a heat pad of where consumers clicked the most, which then led on to the statistics of how many of those clicks actually generated sales. This is a great way to gain a greater scope of the target market by seeing what attracts them the most and at what stage of reading the email they feel ready to go onto the website.
The next area that I found intriguing was social media. I actually ended up writing a blog post about the use of social media in digital marketing and incorporating an interview with Liam Shepherd about his role. I found out some really useful facts about social media platforms such as Facebook and how the transition to timeline benefitted companies in terms of presentation and how much easier it is to archive information from the past. I also worked on writing an article about experiential marketing strategies where social media was an aspect. In the article I talked about the Marmite Christmas lights campaign which was activated on the popular social networking site, Facebook. It is amazing to see the different ways in which a company can be marketed through social platforms which will really get people talking.
Content writing was probably the area which helped me the most in terms of the tasks I was working on throughout my time here. I learnt how the wording for a variety of clients has to be crafted in both professional and colloquial manners, depending on the purpose of the text. From things as simple as writing the meta description, to writing the content for company websites and blogs. The style of writing is a key aspect of getting your message across, so it is important to reflect the client’s aims and ethos in a clear and easy to interpret manner.
I worked on many different articles and blog posts in my time here. I feel that being given a range of topics to write about has opened up my mind to a variety of different subjects and I have learnt a lot. One of my first tasks was to write a technology related review about a product on the market. Even though I am not very technologically minded I found it very interesting to write and loved the style of writing in technological jargon. I wrote another technology piece towards the end of my time here and also found this one fun to write, particularly learning about the drastic changes in technology. Other topics I enjoyed writing about included a blog post for a shoe company about trends for 2013 in footwear. As a fashion fanatic, this was right up my street and I really enjoyed wording it in a colloquial manner as it was a blog post.
I feel that working on content writing has been an amazing experience and has really improved my writing skills. It was very different to the formal formats of essays I am used to writing, but I definitely enjoy content writing a lot more. I hope to take these skills and experience with me in the future and possibly utilise them in a future career.
Overall I have really enjoyed my time here at Coast Digital and am going to take everything I learnt on board with me. I feel it will help me with some of my university modules by adding more of a depth to certain processes within areas of the media. My experience will hopefully help me if I do ever go into marketing or advertising which are two career paths I am attracted by. Before my time here I was not very knowledgeable on marketing digitally and now two weeks on I have learnt so much and I am very grateful to have had this opportunity!