If you want a career that takes advantage of the social nature of the web, try online digital marketing. This is a very broad career that could have many different venues to explore. With companies outsourcing this kind of work, you could get a wide variety of clients. In theory, this should be a fulfilling job based on variety alone.
It doesn’t come in one form though. You may be writing the material to help sites boost their search engine placements. Apart from content generation, you would be working on social networking accounts for some businesses while engaging customers through online and e-marketing channels.
Getting Started
You may start as an intern or volunteer to get a good understanding of digital marketing, but one of the best experiences comes through having your own website. If you own a website, how would you market it online? Getting to know social media, sharing and posting and writing well is part of digital marketing.
As an intern you might have the following roles and responsibilities:
- Maintain Social Media and report on social media analytics
- Assist in content management and create or maintain content calendar
- Outreach and promotion, relationship building
- Design and create banners, advertisement images, etc.
Some expectations on current skills are:
- Familiarity or experience with Google Analytics and WordPress
- Proficiency/Familiarity with social media outlets and analytics (Facebook, Twitter, HootSuite etc.)
- Demonstrate a good understanding of the web development process, life cycle of a website and online promotions
As you move on with experience as a digital marketing manager, here are some expectations that you must be aware of and begin building on them now:
- Experienced in planning, implementing and managing digital marketing programs that build business and brand awareness.
- Track, measure and report online marketing performance on a regular basis
- Communicate online marketing strategies and tactics to colleagues and senior leadership
- Work cross-functionally with internal departments including marketing, newsroom and advertising to identify opportunities, execute brand initiatives and maximize customer engagement and loyalty.
There’s a huge emphasis on communication and social savviness, but don’t forget the analytics aspect. You must show your knowledge and experience in social networking. The theory with social networking is based on followers. With the average person online having an internet reach of about a thousand people, them liking or sharing the content can cause it to spread like wildfire. If you are having a promotional deal or event, news of that can travel fast with social network reach. And here comes the test where just numbers don’t count, it is how well you are interacting, answering and exciting your followers to conversion matters most. It’s a good idea to hone up your skills on SEO expertise for keyword research, reporting, linking campaigns, conversion goals, on-page optimization, social media, local search, image and video optimization, digital asset optimization, and mobile search.
Salary
Salary ranges from the place of work and the organization you work with. Some large organization pay extremely well (higher 6 figure salaries) whereas others might not have as much budget. Here’s salary information via Payscale.com:
