Back in August, I found myself in a position where I was applying for job after job after job, but unfortunately not being able to get one. I deduced that this was due to a lack of experience, so I sought an employer who would be able to offer me work experience. I contacted Duco Digital to try and see if it was possible to do some work experience with them, which they agreed to do.

I started in mid-August and I completed an eight week work placement with Duco Digital.

How I Built a Website in Under Four Weeks

After a brief tour of the premises and being introduced to everybody at the company, I found out the project I would be working on was a website project.

I realised a number of processes you got through when creating a website I was familiar with, particularly the planning stage. The software used to create the website I picked up very easy and quickly, and I surprised myself with how quickly I picked everything up. 

Four weeks later, the website project was complete and I’d created an entire website from scratch. I’d attended meetings with the client discussing the progress of the website and the content for the website.

The website project highlighted that my writing is really good, which made me want to do more with it and develop this even more.

These were all things I didn’t know I could do, but in actual fact I could do them really well, and throughout the entire website project I surprised myself with how well I did everything. 

We had the final meeting where we handed the website back over to the client and then I began working on social media and blog writing.

Nailing Blog Writing

Writing blogs made me remember how much I enjoy writing. Back in education, I would always enjoy having to write specifically descriptive text about things from my imagination; writing the storyline for a game I made in my first year at college was a particular highlight.

It was always something I enjoyed because when I was writing descriptive text I could share my imagination and these images with people, allowing others to ‘paint’ images from their own imagination, based on what I was writing.

When it came to blog writing, I adopted a similar approach in that when people read my blog, I didn’t want to bore them with just fact after fact. I want them to enjoy reading my writing and read more. 

Too many times I’ve been reading an article and lost interest halfway through. I don’t want people to do this with my writing so I try to connect with the reader and almost talk to them.

How I Created the Perfect Social Media Content

The social media side I found to be more of a challenge than I expected, I’ve never used any form of social media to a professional standard, so I didn’t really know how to do it professionally, and sometimes found myself taking too long.

I started by scheduling a few posts a week for Duco Digital’s social media, across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The part I think I found the most challenging in this, was choosing hashtags. I’ve never used social media professionally before this work placement so I didn’t know what to consider when choosing hashtags, It might seem obvious but it isn’t as easy as you might think. But after doing more and more I’m noticing an increase in the quality of the posts and a decrease in the time it’s taking me to create them.

But I’ve been doing social media for the past few weeks and, although I’m still nowhere near being an expert in doing social media, I’ve noticed a remarkable increase in the quality of the posts I’m creating and also the speed in which I can do it.

Conclusion

Overall, I really enjoyed my time on my work placement, and I gained a plethora of new skills that are vital for this industry. I’ve now started my Level 4 Digital Marketing Apprenticeship and I’ll continue my development within Digital Marketing so that I can have a successful career in Digital Marketing.