How did I get into Digital Marketing?-My story
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I’ll discuss here which courses I took, and the internships. I’ll highlight some of my mistakes and suggestions to help you be more careful while making decisions in your digital marketing career. And here I will share whatever I did to become a digital marketer.
Let’s get started.
As soon as my 11th-grade exams were finished, I began looking for work both offline and online, so I was looking for jobs when I came across a video of Simjeet Singh explaining future skills. I clicked, and in that video, he discussed skills that schools and colleges do not teach but are critical for future jobs(Some of those skills are complex problem-solving, cognitive flexibility, and critical thinking. If you want to know more, watch the video below).
I then looked for jobs that required these skills and discovered that one of them was digital marketing. I began researching what digital marketing is and where I could learn about it.
I found some free videos on YouTube and signed up for the free course by Ankur Aggarwal where the team used to send me one video per day via email in order for me to watch, understand, and implement it. From there I understood what digital marketing is, how it works, what it involves, and its overall idea about it but didn’t keep practicing those things and because of this, my knowledge faded.
When lockdown hit, again I searched for other resources available online to learn digital marketing. This time, I came across Google’s Fundamentals of Digital Marketing. It was nice, but I’ll be honest — there were times when I didn’t want to watch it — but I did it to finish the course. In that course, At the end of each series, there are multiple choice questions, and there is also a final test, which I passed. Even though I received the certificate, I lacked any actual work experience.
I made the decision to do an internship as a result, and my friend later shared a link from the Indeed platform. I signed up for the internship since it was offered by a US-based organization called theiidm (International Institute of Digital Marketing) which also offered training and certificates that were internationally recognized. It was three months curriculum, During the internship, I wrote blogs that were optimized for search engines, used Canva to make social media posts, learned about paid and organic search, and ran FB ads, Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and Twitter promotion. I gained a tonne of practical experience.
So it was time to apply for a job. In my second year of graduation, one of my professors shared information about campus recruitment that was happening at another college, so my friend and I went there and gave two interviews, in which one of them was running Facebook ads for a real state company and the other one was an SEO related job.
I turned down the job at a real estate company because the company was too far from my location, so I went to the second one, and this time the owner of that company took my interview and asked a bunch of questions. I only gave two correct answers because, whatever he was asking me, I had never heard that before. I was ignorant of some of the topics back then and had no idea how broad the field of digital marketing was. And I got rejected.
After taking so many free classes, I decided to enroll in a paid SEO course from a local institute because when you pay for anything, you value it and want to make the most of it.
Fortunately, I had a mentor and adviser who gave me real-world experience and helped me land an internship. I had a three-month internship where I learned about SEO. I feel confident about my skills.
I believe that staying up to date with the latest information is crucial in today’s fast-paced world. That’s why I recently completed a Udemy course, and I make it a priority to update my skills and knowledge on a daily basis. It’s important to stay relevant because you never know when you might become outdated.
Finally, I work full-time and learn part-time. I both freelance and work for a firm.
Tips from my past experience.
- With just one course, and the end of that you will never be a pro in any field until the institute teaches you everything but it will take more time than you see people advertise.
- Check and compare the contents of courses before choosing courses.
- It’s never enough to keep learning new things in your field.
- Get excited about what you are doing, and keep up with the trends.
- Don’t try to learn everything at the beginning, choose one niche to get skilled in first.
- You’ll get slightly different tasks in different companies within the same job positions. so be prepared for that.
- If you are a complete beginner, enrolling in any basic digital marketing course will help you get a better understanding of the whole digital marketing domain. After that, you’ll be better positioned to pick the right course for you.
- Enroll in a full digital marketing course or an ultimate digital marketing course.
You can enroll in a training program if you’re serious about digital marketing and want to create a career. Here is the list of benefits of joining an institute:
- You get to experience a well-organized training program with a proper syllabus.
- Practical knowledge and Hands-on experience.
- You obtain certification, which will give you an edge during job interviews.
I shared my story because, when you try anything new, very few people near you are familiar with it. In the process of trying to figure things out on your own, you waste a lot of time. At this moment, some students and people give up because they lack direction. Because of this, I thought sharing some of my experiences with you could be helpful.
If you are reading this, I hope you find it helpful. All the best guys, Keep learning and keep exploring.