Head of Digital Marketing at Hommage International Limited
BA English Language, 2017
What does your role involve?
My role involves planning and uploading all social media posts for my company on sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc and using the special tools created to put out sponsored posts targeted at particular potential customers. I also write all articles for the website's blog, send out all email blasts to thousands of customers and I arrange marketing events such as a sample hand outs at Canary Wharf station and a pop up at the men’s London Fashion Week.
How did you get your role?
I got the role through Indeed and I applied for it in August and started working for them around 2-3 weeks later. Indeed was a really good tool to use as it showed the most recently published job first, unlike the Guardian jobs which I was using before which posted the jobs most likely to end first. This was a lot better as usually the jobs that are likely to end soon because they’ve already been posted for 30 days, those companies will have already found candidates and began interviewing by then.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
Meeting different people that we are planning on collaborating with such as influencers etc and writing the articles, as I studied English Language I found it fairly easy to create content quickly and so it becomes enjoyable learning about a topic before writing about it, especially if it's something I'm interested in already. It’s also actually just quite interesting to learn about the marketing field and how people think and how to target particular buyers.
What’s most challenging?
Having to suddenly meet important deadlines for investors as there is a lot of money at stake that they could bring to the business, and so you have to get everything perfect when creating a presentation on the company or something similar, then I'd often end up staying till around 9pm until everything looks perfect but even then you worry it’s not enough. Also time management, when suddenly a load of things are thrown on you to complete and you have to pick and choose what is the most urgent.
How did your time at Birmingham help prepare you for this role?
It helped me to be an efficient writer which I can now use when writing articles etc and I can actually enjoy writing and feel confident that I am a skilled writer. Also the constant deadlines at Birmingham University do help you in the end as I said for time management and understanding how you work under pressure and what helps you to get things done to your best ability. However, I also wish we had more help with interview preparation and cv building etc.
What advice would you give to graduates? What about those interested in working in a similar area to you?
Maybe try and do a small online course in marketing beforehand as when studying English anyway you don't get all of the marketing knowledge but a lot of it is online, but don't pay ridiculous prices for information that may be free elsewhere! Also if you can afford to maybe do some work experience for free with a firm so that you have some experience and understanding when you do apply for jobs, this will also pay off in the end as you’ll be able to apply for better paid roles if you have that knowledge to begin with.