At the beginning of February 2021 I started my CMI Level 5 Certificate in Management and Leadership course at South Eastern Regional College, and to complete this course each student has to undertake a 6 week work placement. It is now the end of my course and therefore the end of my placement with Chartered Marketer Christine Watson and her companies TrainingMatchmaker.com and Watson and Co Chartered Marketing.
At the beginning of my placement I wrote a learning plan blog that outlined what I wanted to get out of my time with TrainingMatchmaker.com and the Make It Click portal. I graduated with a degree in Geography and International Relations from the University of Aberdeen in 2018 but I wanted to enhance my knowledge and skills surrounding the marketing and digital marketing industries. I hoped to complete some courses and gain experience using a number of digital marketing tools.

Social media

I set out to gain a better understanding of how to use social media from a professional stand point. I wanted to complete a wide range of courses and use multiple tools and I successfully completed:
  1. Hootsuite: Introduction to Social Media Marketing
  2. Learning LinkedIn Basics
I have also started and will continue until I finish the Fundamentals of Digital Marketing course from Google Digital Garage.
As mentioned in my learning plan blog I am part of the generation that grew up with social media, it’s a very normal thing in day to day life being a millennial however it was an interest of mine to get more into the professional side. I developed and edited a new Twitter account as well as revamping my LinkedIn profile after attending the BBC Academy’s Digital City event about LinkedIn by TrainingMatchmaker.com trainer Louise Brogan.
During my placement I was also able to create my own pictures and captions for the TrainingMatchmaker.com Instagram site, which were also posted, in edited form, to the Twitter and Facebook for business accounts.
It was also very interesting to get an insight into the data that comes from social media posts, throughout my time on placement we looked at Facebook insights, Instagram insights, Twitter insights and I was able to look at my own LinkedIn post insights as well as getting a glimpse into the Google Analytics of TrainingMatchmaker.com.

WordPress

Prior to starting my placement I had some knowledge of WordPress and how it works thanks to my time as a reporter and co-editor of The Tab, an online student newspaper. However since graduating university I haven’t really looked at it that much so I wanted to learn new styles of writing and learning more about Yoast, a search search engine optimisation (SEO) plugin. My placement with Watson and Co. Chartered Marketing and TrainingMatchmaker.com has inspired me to relaunch my own coffee blog that I created through WordPress.
With the relaunch of my own blog and the completion of my certificate from Hootsuite, I set out to learn more about what their scheduling tool does. When I was posting graphics on Instagram to announce my blog I used Hootsuite to schedule the posts in advance so I wouldn’t have to worry about them. For the completion of the CMI Level 5 Certificate in Management and Leadership course that I embarked on I had to come up with a change management plan as part of my assignment, I used my experience and knowledge of Hootsuite to suggest creating a content calendar and the use of scheduling tools to save time and maintain content frequency.

Canva

With learning more about the world of digital marketing I was introduced to the photo editor tool, Canva. This tool allowed me to make graphics and other things for use on social media sites as well as using it in my own time to create a new logo for my coffee blog. Throughout my placement I had many chances to improve my Canva skills as I got to create different graphics for various projects.

Audits

Before starting my placement I had never even heard of, let alone completed, a social media audit. Once I completed my certificate in Social Marketing from Hootsuite I had a slightly better understanding, however when it was time to actually do an audit this was the best way of learning as it was a first hand experience. I got the change to do social media audits for a variety of clients from different industries and it involved transferrable skills that I will definitely use in the future.

Young Enterprise

During my time at school I was part of a Young Enterprise Northern Ireland project, where my class got to set up our own company and product. We developed the product and then sold it at school, through social media and at a Young Enterprise trade fair. As I am a Young Enterprise programme alumni I got the chance to work on a project aimed at teaching Young Enterprise alumni skills in digital and social media marketing. In this project I got to write and release a press release, along with creating various graphics on Canva and also setting up a Google form for expressions of interest to participate in the programme. It was very exciting to be back involved with Young Enterprise as I had many good memories of my time on their programme coming back.  

About Me

I am Beth Godfrey, I live in Saintfield, a small town in Northern Ireland and I have just completed a CMI Level 5 Certificate in Management and Leadership course at South Eastern Regional College after graduating in 2018 with a 2:1 in Geography and International Relations from the University of Aberdeen. After being a reporter and co-editor for online student newspaper The Tab during my time at university I developed an interest in digital marketing and social media. This interest was then sparked again when I set up my own Instagram blog, Beth Brews, dedicated to coffee.      
Follow along with me on my social handles:
Instagram – Beth Brews
Twitter  – @bethgodfrey23
LinkedIn – Beth Godfrey

About TrainingMatchmaker.com

Training Matchmaker is a website community that aggregates free online learning tools and signposts people to educational opportunities to help them reach their full potential. It also enables them to build or gain new skills with special help from Trainers across Northern Ireland. As well as finding courses you can also find specific trainers and training opportunities.

About Make It Click

Make It Click is a collection of free online learning resources, tools and templates, with face-to-face or online support in communities across the UK. Helping people to learn new skills, gain confidence and take positive steps in their career. Make It Click has a collection more than 200 online resources ranging from guides, videos to certified courses, and if you have an account you can ‘bookmark’ your favourites by creating a playlist and come back to them later. You too can sign up to makeitclick.com for free using Centre Number 8003411 – TrainingMatchmaker.com when registering. Make It Click is developed by Good Things Foundation and made possible through funding from Google.org. TrainingMatchmaker.com is an online centre of Good Things Foundation.

About SERC

South Eastern Regional College – as a Further Education College, is a primary delivery arm for government to ensure that the Northern Ireland workforce has the skills to build a successful economy. SERC offers each student a career enhancing experience through enterprise driven curriculum where students will work on live projects, solving problems for real businesses.
My recent course at SERC was the Level 5 Certificate in Management and Leadership aimed at graduates who had been furloughed, made redundant, were facing possible redundancy or have had their employment opportunities affected by COVID-19. The course was funded by the Department for Economy NI and each student was given a £150 training allowance each week for the duration of the 8-week course. The 8 week course included a 6 week work placement hosted by a Northern Ireland organisation.
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