First Year at a Digital Marketing Agency

August 3, 2016

Approaching my one year anniversary at Digital Marketing Agency Venture Stream, my thoughts have turned somewhat reflective as I ponder my time here and think about what I have learned along the way. My role as a Digital Marketing Consultant has morphed into handling social media accounts and creating content marketing pieces for a varied array of clients, along with so much more. Here are five points I have recognised as being crucial to my journey so far and may be useful for anyone looking to perhaps change career or embark upon a job in Digital Marketing for the first time.

 

Always Be Learning. Although this comes as no surprise, changing from a twenty year career in media sales to a more creative role in digital marketing, I knew that I had a lot to learn. And while I am a firm believer that you never stop learning, whether aged seven or seventy, I had maybe forgotten quite how much learning goes into a new job. I consider myself so lucky and fortunate to have found my dream job so soon after leaving my last workplace. To find a company that is exciting, full of creative ideas and an even more exceptionally talented team is more than I could have wished for.

Find the Job You Love through Hobbies. As my last job in media sales didn’t end up fulfilling my creative needs, I found a place to hone my own creative skills outside of the workplace by producing my own blog. I spent seven years learning how to design and build my own website (liaising with a US based web designer), how to write and create engaging content, learned photography and created my own visual style, as well as how to build my audience through various social media channels. Working religiously on this project consistently for seven years gave me the determination to move on from an established but fairly mundane career onto something new and exciting, confident in the knowledge that I could bring my own style and experience to Venture Stream and have something to offer the company.

Have Confidence. I always find that having previous experience helps with my confidence levels. So moving from familiar territory into the unknown was something of a challenge for me – exciting that is, but challenging! However, within a few months of working at Venture Stream I started to build my own fresh knowledge base and with a team around me who are always willing to share their own expertise, this continues to grow every day. Getting involved with lots of different areas of the business helps to form a well-rounded understanding of how a digital marketing agency works.

You Will Make Mistakes. Making mistakes throughout my life has never particularly bothered me. Yes, sometimes they can be a little cringe-worthy but I have always had the opinion that mistakes are for learning from and as long as the opportunity has arisen to learn something new, they have not been a total waste of time. I am the most self-critical person there is and will often hang on to an ‘almost finished’ piece of work, believing it to not be quite right, looking for that elusive perfectionism. And whilst wanting to produce the best piece of work is no bad thing, sometimes just getting it out there is the best way forward. Ultimately, being self-aware is a good personal skill to develop, by understanding what you’re good at and where you need to work harder, and can only help fulfil personal development in the long run.

Learn By Doing. I don’t think anyone gets the best experience by simply being told something. You have to go out there and experience it for yourself. Only by trying new techniques will you learn what works and what doesn’t. This can be as simple as learning which social media channels suit which clients at the best time of day. Or it can be honing a personal writing style for pieces of content marketing. Or even learning the best way to deal with a client and build a good rapport. The best way is to get right on and do it and I’m a firm believer that practicing is the best way to get better. Working in a small company, you become a close-knit team very quickly. And the team becomes more about the individuals and how they work and interact with one another than anything else. To look out for one another and have each other’s best interests at heart makes the company stronger and the work more cohesive.

 

If you want to find out more about what we offer here at Venture Stream and are looking to develop your own digital strategy, give us a call or drop us an email, we’d love to hear from you and have a chat!