My name is Jyothirmayee Vaddi, I completed my master’s in Marketing and Human resources. I am originally from India, I moved from India to Belfast 6 years ago due to my husband’s job change. I have two children. I have 3 years of experience as a customer sales assistant.
During the pandemic I lost my job. After that I seen a South Eastern Regional College post on Facebook that inspired me to applied for a fully funded Digital Marketing course. As part of this 12 week learning and skills development programme the Department for Economy in Northern Ireland pays trainees £150 per week. The programme requires students to undertake an 8 week work placement in digital marketing. Currently I am being hosted at TrainingMatchmaker.com under the supervision of Digital Marketing Trainer Christine Watson.
I am looking to expand my skills and gain further experience in a professional environment, moving towards a future career in the marketing field. I am excited to boost my creativity, improve on the skills I already have and learn skills that I are completely new to me.
I love to cook and sew and I craft clothes for myself and my daughter. I hope that in 2021 I can be on the right track with my career.
My Learning Aims:
To improve my language skills:
I studied English at school and college, but I never had the opportunity to speak a language very different from mine for so long. The opportunities to speak in English were very limited in my home country. I hope to improve my skills in speech and writing. Improving my English is very important for my future projects and work.
One free online course option that was presented to me via the Open Learn signpost on TrainingMatchmaker.com was: ‘English: Skills for Learning‘. This course lasts about 8 weeks, with approximately 3 hours’ study time each week although I can work through the course at my own pace and take as long as you want to complete it. Completing this course would give me a Free statement of participation – an Open University digital badge as evidence of continuing professional development.
To become competent in remote work communication tools:My work placement and many work opportunities suited to my circumstance are remote. It is beneficial for me to learn and practice the digital communication tools used by remote workers.
Google Meet: Before my placement interview I did not know how to set up a meeting using the google meet video tool. The placement has signposted me to learning how to set up the meetings in different ways and I also watched google meet related videos in makeitclick.com. Already, in my first week I now feel able to use google meet and schedule meetings and recurring dates.
I also aim to gain competence in using the following digital tools for work: Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Doodlepoll.
To develop my digital marketing skills and confidence:My placement trainer Christine introduced me to the world of free online training and platforms https://trainingmatchmaker.com/ and makeitclick.com as part of my induction to the Digital Marketing traineeship. As part of this, I am currently undergoing training on the below tools:
Christine helped me to traverse through the WordPress platform and its use for business and for blogging. After my research about this tool, I found out that 33.4% of all websites are built on it! It offers a wide range of features like creating posts and adding media. I learned how to publish and edit posts and how to install hyperlinks in content and images to make content more useful for readers.
Hashtag Marketing:
I was encouraged to educate myself on hashtag marketing as I believe that it can add significant value to digital marketing efforts. I plan to read a variety of blogs and articles regarding hashtag marketing including how to create and manage hashtag marketing campaigns.
My reading list includes:
Social Media Examiner’s Guide: How to Use Instagram Hashtags for Business
Hubspot’s: The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Hashtags for 2021
Twitter for Business Blog: The secret to an effective hashtag campaign
Canva:
Canva is a great platform to use to create quick and professional graphics in minutes. I would recommend Canva to everyone because it helps with creating your own visual marketing content by giving you templates, images, and text styles for you to simply drag and drop. It is great if you cannot think of a style to create your own work as you can quickly choose from countless templates and images provided to help you with trying to come up with a graphic idea. You can also go back and change the template style or text style rather than having to start all over again. It is simply laid out with all the tools to create your visual components on the left-hand side. I look forward to using Canva to create various graphics and hope to see some used on the digital channels of trainingmatchmaker.com. It is also easy to upload your own footage onto the platform to use within your own creation.
Blogging:
I have never written a blog before. This learning plan is my first blog. I love the idea of learning how to write blogs to be hosted in the internet via the WordPress platform. I look forward to this opportunity and feel that this learning plan blog is a perfect start for my blogging experience.
Social Media:
I aim to learn more about social media from a business’s perspective, and also as part of advertising strategies. This will develop my knowledge on how companies use social media to engage with consumers and create a brand community. My aim is to learn how a business can effectively use the following social media platforms:
Twitter – I plan to use Twitter to support business goals i.e., to connect and interact with target audiences. Twitter flight school is one learning option to help me to master advertising and marketing on the twitter platform.
Facebook – I already use facebook for personal use, I mostly read content from others rather than post myself. I look forward to learning more about facebook for business and I hope to be able to contribute to the facebook page of trainingmatchmaker.comFacebook Insights – A tool used to help marketers learn about their target audience, including geography, demographics, and purchase behaviour.
To develop my level of proficiency as a business using Facebook I plan to complete some Facebook Blueprint training.
Instagram – I have a personal account and I am able to post images, videos, and stories to this visual story telling platform. I plan to work towards perfecting my copywriting and use of hashtags. Free Facebook blueprint training available online focusing on Instagram will help me achieve better results for instagram for business.
LinkedIn – often used to build a professional portfolio, connect with business contacts and to seek employment prospects. I have recently created a LinkedIn account for myself and I plan to learn how LinkedIn works. My learning commitments include investing time in the following relevant resources on makeitclick.com and watsonsmarketing.com
Online Safety and Security:
I have to admit, the online world makes me nervous when I think about how easy it is for people to scam and hack into accounts. It is so important to be able to spot things that may be a risk to my personal or professional accounts. This also includes documents, as it’s imperative not to breach any confidentiality rights of an organisation or client.
Marketing Measurement:
Google analytics: I plan to use this to analyse the number of views of my blog. My Trainer: Christine Watson will demonstrate Google Analytics towards the end of my time on placement as well as insights on instagram and facebook, twitter analytics and LinkedIn analytics. I plan to understand more about the measurements that matter when reporting to businesses on digital marketing.
In addition to the above, I aim to gain an understanding of integrated marketing and the wider digital landscape: My reading list includes resources by Dave Chaffey, Smart Insights on Content marketing, by chiefmartec on the Market Technology Landscape and by Hootsuite regarding Social Media Auditing.
I look forward to the challenges ahead and hope to achieve my learning aims over the next 8 weeks on work placement. I plan to use the learning signposts on websites such as trainingmatchmaker.com and makeitclick.com and find other trusted resources also to help me grow my competence and confidence. I aim to utilise these skills to become a digital marketer and to build a portfolio of digital marketing for business work. I hope that my first blog educates other people to the learning opportunities that are out there and shows useful ways to learn new things. I trust that this, my first blog, will not be my only blog and look forward to blogging again.About Me
My name is Jyothirmayee Vaddi, I completed my master’s in Marketing and Human resources. I am originally from India, I moved from India to Belfast 6 years ago due to my husband’s job change. I have two children. You are welcome to follow along with me on my LinkedIn.
About TrainingMatchmaker.com
TrainingMatchmaker.com is a website that aggregates free online learning tools and signposts people to educational opportunities to help them reach their full potential. It is also home to a community of independent Trainers from across Northern Ireland.
About Make It Click
makeitclick.com is a collection of free online learning resources, tools, and templates, with face-to-face online support in communities across the UK. Helping people to learn new skills, gain confidence and take positive steps in their career. It has a collection more than 200 online resources.
About SERC
South Eastern Regional College is a Further and Higher Education College in Northern Ireland, it 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. SERC provides hundreds of full-time and part-time courses of varying qualification levels, to allow teenagers and adults to develop their skills, utilise them in a practical means, and provide the best possible benefits for future careers.
My course at SERC leads to the Level 4 Social and Digital Marketing Award and it is aimed at graduates who have been furloughed, made redundant or are facing possible redundancy or have had their employment opportunities affected by COVID-19. The course is funded by the Department for Economy NI and each student is given a £150 training allowance each week for the duration of the 12 week course.
