I’m Asya Giacalone and I completed an Erasmus Traineeship with www.watsonsmarketing.com and trainingmatchmaker.com founder Christine in Belfast, Northern Ireland for 5 weeks. On Tuesday 3rd September 2019, I met my Trainer: Chartered Marketer Christine Watson. In the days following I created my first ever blog post – my learning plan, which listed my learning goals for my time here working and living in Belfast.
My Twitter course
My trainer Christine Watson held a twitter course for Mallusk Enterprise Park where I documented her Twitter marketing course delivery. Before the course I didn’t know much about twitter. You can find more free courses about twitter listed on www.trainingmatchmaker.com
After this twitter course I created draft tweets for use on Twitter for business including online networking hour: #BelfastHour – which takes place on twitter between 9 and 10pm every Thursday. Many of my draft tweets were published by my Trainer and Mentor Christine on various twitter for business pages during each Belfast Hour.
My Apple courses
During my training I went many times to the Apple Store in Victoria Square where I did some of the free #TodayAtApple courses. Thanks to these courses I now know many techniques for taking better photos and videos with my iphone. There is a wide selection and you can find a link to the Today At Apple courses on TrainingMatchmaker.com.
My Google Breakfast Briefing
For this event we were out of the office all day, the course was delivered in Google European Headquarters in Dublin. We went to the 6th of September briefing entitled Unwrapping Christmas, which gave insights into consumer behaviors and triggers that influence purchasing patterns online, ahead of the Christmas season. It was a new experience for me. I learned new skills that I will need in my future job and I got to use the Google Art Immersion platform which was on display.
My WordPress Course
At the start of my traineeship My trainer Christine showed me how to create a blog or post to this website using the popular wordpress platform. Wordpress is a very popular choice for websites. I found the process very easy and this Learning Log is my second blog.
My Canva discovery
Canva is a graphic-design tool which uses a drag-and-drop format and provides access to over a million photographs and graphics.
Before my traineeship at www.watsonsmarketing.com I didn’t know this app but during my 5 weeks I used this application a lot to create graphic content for Christine and her clients. For example, I created many templates for the River To Lough festival that took place on 28th of September – these Canva graphics were used on the brand social media platforms.
Look at one of my templates about the recipe with Lough Neagh eel and Lough Neagh pollan fish. I was also lucky to attend a tour around Lough Neagh, my job during this trip was to take lots of photos and videos for use in marketing. The Lough Neagh tour included a boat trip as well as lots of tastings and Irish traditional music – it was a great experience.
Instagram
Before this traineeship I was already competent on instagram as both a personal and a business user – I post for my school. This traineeship taught me about the importance of hashtags on instagram for discovery and also potential amplification by other brands such as Discover Northern Ireland – who may repost your instagram tile or story should you give them permission to do so by using their hashtag in your post.
In my 5 weeks I drafted many instagram tiles (squares) and stories and many of my contributions were used on various business brand channels including WatsonsMarketing link to Instagram.com/watsonsmarketing, trainingmatchmaker and River to Lough Festival.
An example of my content creation during my Erasmus Traineeship –
Going Forward
In my first few days my learning plan was crafted and this included many ambitions. I didn’t get to complete all the free online and face to face training courses available to me and all that I wanted to but there is nothing to stop me continuing my learning when I return home to Italy.
If you compare this learning log to my original learning plan you will see that I didn’t get the chance to complete the YouTube or Facebook Blueprint and Instagram courses but my Trainer and Mentor: Christine Watson says that this isn’t a problem and to celebrate all the many that I did manage to complete in my five weeks.
My name is Asya Giacalone, I am from Italy and I am 17 years old. My birthday is 23rd of September. I celebrated my 18th birthday in a different city, far from my family and with new friends. Intern-europe allowed me to do this 5 week erasmus in Belfast. I lived in a shared apartment in donegal road in the south of Belfast city.
I like to spend my free time with my family and with my friends. I will attend the last year of high school this year. I study marketing and economics and so this traineeship was perfect for me. I like travelling and discovering new places and cultures. Next year I would like to go to university and continue my studies in marketing and advertising.
You can follow me on instagram:@asya_giacalone
Find my Learning Plan here.
I completed my traineeship alongside my school colleague Geremia, you can find his Learning Plan here and his Learning Log here.
I also had the chance to work with Belfast Met Live Skills Trainee Will West – a 54 year old father of 3 Will was a great person and it was very interesting and enjoyable to work with an older person who was undertaking similar social media and digital marketing training challenges – you can find Will’s Learning plan here and his Learning Log here. I follow Will now on his brand new instagram page and I hope to stay in touch.
For this event we were out of the office all day, the course was delivered in Google European Headquarters in Dublin. We went to the 6th of September briefing entitled Unwrapping Christmas, which gave insights into consumer behaviors and triggers that influence purchasing patterns online, ahead of the Christmas season. It was a new experience for me. I learned new skills that I will need in my future job and I got to use the Google Art Immersion platform which was on display.
My WordPress Course
At the start of my traineeship My trainer Christine showed me how to create a blog or post to this website using the popular wordpress platform. Wordpress is a very popular choice for websites. I found the process very easy and this Learning Log is my second blog.
My Canva discovery
Canva is a graphic-design tool which uses a drag-and-drop format and provides access to over a million photographs and graphics.
Before my traineeship at www.watsonsmarketing.com I didn’t know this app but during my 5 weeks I used this application a lot to create graphic content for Christine and her clients. For example, I created many templates for the River To Lough festival that took place on 28th of September – these Canva graphics were used on the brand social media platforms.
Look at one of my templates about the recipe with Lough Neagh eel and Lough Neagh pollan fish. I was also lucky to attend a tour around Lough Neagh, my job during this trip was to take lots of photos and videos for use in marketing. The Lough Neagh tour included a boat trip as well as lots of tastings and Irish traditional music – it was a great experience.
Instagram
Before this traineeship I was already competent on instagram as both a personal and a business user – I post for my school. This traineeship taught me about the importance of hashtags on instagram for discovery and also potential amplification by other brands such as Discover Northern Ireland – who may repost your instagram tile or story should you give them permission to do so by using their hashtag in your post.
In my 5 weeks I drafted many instagram tiles (squares) and stories and many of my contributions were used on various business brand channels including WatsonsMarketing link to Instagram.com/watsonsmarketing, trainingmatchmaker and River to Lough Festival.
An example of my content creation during my Erasmus Traineeship –
Hashtag Marketing As part of my traineeship I built hashtag directories for both WatsonsMarketing.com and Trainer Christine’s client: the River to Lough festival. To find hashtags that should be used on instagram posts I researched other instagram pages and learned about tools: hashtagify.me and Tagboard. Influencer Marketing To deliver content marketing in an organised way I created an influencer directory to list all the tags of the funders, sponsors and other stakeholders involved in the River to Lough festival – at times these tags differed from instagram to twitter and to facebook. The English Language Five weeks in an English speaking country has taught me some local words such as ‘baltic’ but my written English is now better and I am a bit more confident with my spoken English – I am quite timid when conversing in English but I was able to make friends with my colleagues and even teach them a few Italian words – Buon appetito and perfetto. I was also conscious to try and avoid speaking Italian in front of my colleagues for risk of causing paranoia and offense. My cultural trips
Thanks to Christine and thanks to my Erasmus project I could discover Belfast and wider Northern Ireland. I visited Belfast City hall, Ulster Museum, Botanic Gardens, Giant’s causeway, The Big Fish, St George’s Market, Lough Neagh, Parliament Buildings, Stormont and I loved exploring all these places. I hope to return to visit these beautiful places with my family in the future. 
