How can I start digital marketing

Curious about how to start an exciting career as a digital marketer? Wondering the best ways to find digital marketing jobs?

Online learning can help you quickly hone and diversify your current skills. It can make a huge difference to your future career path.

Know the difference between digital and traditional marketing

Are you wondering if it is possible to switch a career from regular marketing to digital marketing?

Is there really a lot of difference? Yes and no. However, you should examine some of the key differences if you have a traditional marketing background. Here are some key similarities and differences:

Strategically evaluate your current skills and abilities

What are you really good and passionate about right now? What is your experience? There is a good chance that you will find something that is perfectly suitable for digital marketing because it is such a versatile field. Here are some specialties to consider:

• Video
• Audio
• Social media
• Mobile Marketing
• E-commerce
• Content management
• Web development
• Web design
• Digital publishing
• Copywriting
• Mobile Marketing
• Analytics
• Business / Marketing Strategy

After you take stock of your current skills, you can choose to get certified or just take a few courses to improve your skills. However, it is about continuing education now and in the future.

You can learn a lot about digital marketing without getting formal certification, but you are definitely ahead of the game if you have extensive experience, a self-study ability, and formal certification. Fortunately, there are many digital marketing courses and programs available part-time so you can study at your own pace.

Familiarize yourself with specialty areas

There are so many things you can specialize in when getting into digital marketing. This is part of what makes it interesting, and why pretty much anyone in the field can find a way around it. Here are some examples of the different areas you can specialize in:

Content / social media strategy

You will be a great writer, but if you want to get into strategy or management you need a lot more. You should be able to use a variety of tools to analyze and report numbers, but you don’t have to be super technical. More importantly, you can use a solid combination of creativity and hard data to contribute to effective ad campaigns, and understand how to deeply engage an audience through social media and content.

SEO

Everyone in digital marketing needs to know a little about search engine optimization (SEO) as well as search engine marketing – but don’t let this somewhat technical specialty put you off. Most digital marketing programs will incorporate this into their basic training. In the meantime, you can learn the basics by following blogs like Moz.

Read and blog about your specialty

Nowadays we are so lucky that we have a lot of information available online for free or even almost free!

There are so many options – here are a few great ways to get started

Learn more about the basics of blogging and copywriting through Copyblogger or Copy Hackers

Check out websites like Moz and SEM Rush to learn more about SEO

You can follow websites like Adweek to stay up to date on advertising trends

You want to take a formal course to differentiate yourself from others. However, it is always a good idea to devote yourself as much as possible to individual learning and skill development.

Your personal marketing is professional marketing

Marketing is a creative field. To that end (unless you are in a very technical field) when creating a website, portfolio, and blogging, your focus should be on using this as an opportunity to build your authority. All you have to do is talk about what you are doing as you do it and what you are learning as you go and you will show the world that you are self motivated and interested in marketing.

Try (almost) everything

If you are just starting out, you will need specific experience. Even if this means taking on volunteer positions, working together, or exchanging, if there is anything you need to learn, just learn. Then you can add these experiences to your portfolio or include them again.

(However, be wary of full-time unpaid internships if you don’t have the resources or the energy to manage them.)

Always be one step ahead of trends

The field of digital marketing is constantly changing and evolving. To do this, you need to keep abreast of not only keeping your personal skills updated, but also being able to develop competitive marketing strategies on how to work with different clients and agencies.

Use LinkedIn strategically

Even after 16 years, LinkedIn remains the best professional social networking site with a whopping 467 million users, according to HootSuite. Not only is it extremely versatile for networking and job hunters, but there are several ways to stand out on this popular platform.

Here are some ideas:

Make sure you have a catchy, unique title and skill summary. Your skill summary should be at the top of the page, below the crease.

List your qualifications as precisely as possible. For example, instead of just saying “Content Writer” you could describe your process for researching, composing, and creating great articles and sharing how successful they were.

Use special features like Slideshare and LinkedIn’s blogging feature to share your knowledge. Joining groups and sharing videos is also a good idea for establishing authority.

Use LinkedIn Premium, a great tool for anyone serious about pitching and networking. If you pay the $ 30 a month, you can send InMail to pretty much anyone you want, so you can grab the attention of hiring managers and hiring professionals at your favorite companies.

Forget your CV (sort of)

We don’t actually mean this literally – of course, you want to keep your resume up to date and even give it a creative touch if your brand or area of ​​expertise looks like it.

What is more important these days, especially in careers with a digital focus, is a strong LinkedIn profile, as well as a great portfolio and website. Forward-thinking and innovative company will likely have forward-thinking hiring practices and also seek creativity, especially if you are in a creative field.

Here are some examples of activities in place of your resume, portfolio, and LinkedIn profile:

Attend a conference with a personalized swag that doubles as a business card

Get exercise building websites by creating your own website in Word Press or Squarespace and then talking about how you did it.

Do you have an introductory video that shows your skills and work process using unique graphics such as graphs, charts, or illustrations, or keep it simple and just introduce yourself. This shows at least two skills: first, that you can speak clearly and competently, and second, that you have a basic understanding of video creation. (Or you could get really creative and write a rap song like this.)

The bottom line

The internet is full of digital jobs, and finding the right job – and education – that is right for you will be different for everyone. It is important that you have a solid assessment of your strengths, interests and current hard and soft skills in order to come up with a plan that fits your current situation.

The wonderful thing is that in today’s world of online learning there are many ways to teach yourself all kinds of skills, both formally and informally, from the comfort of your own home.

The important thing is that you design your own plan and find a version of success that matters to you. And don’t forget to have fun while you’re at it!

Learn the most important digital subjects with a Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing. Download a brochure today!