Monday: Podcast filming 

I had the wonderful opportunity to be a part of filming ‘Behind the future’ podcast with Becky which I was so grateful for! I got to meet 4 amazing people starting with Helen Banyard, the Co-founder of The Good Stuff and Good Folk. She works directly with founders and senior leadership teams to help them find out who they are and build their brand! As well as supporting smaller charities with pro-bono collective and hosting a couple of different communities. I was so lucky to hear all about her journey and her opinions on things as she is a MGGS alumni so we had common things to discuss. 

I then had the pleasure of meeting Nicola Joyce the director of Nicola Joyce Copywriter Ltd. She is a specialist copywriter for brands and businesses in the fitness and wellness sector, she strategises and writes for client launches, sales and marketing. It was so interesting to meet her and find out more about her journey and especially how she got into her niche of Fitness and wellness. She was a very inspiring person to talk to as she had been through struggles throughout her career and especially with the evolving of AI she worried if her job would be a thing in the future, however with perseverance she has got her business back on track. I loved hearing her personal stories and the advice she had to offer young people going into the working world. 

I also had the joy of meeting Mhairi Harris who is a Senior Project Manager & client delivery lead at Zerolight. She bridges the gap between high-level client strategy and operational execution, serving as the primary partner for senior stakeholders and so much else! She has had a very wiggly road to her career which I found so inspiring, going from arts and performance school then straight into a completely different role to finally end up in project management. I had never known much about project management before so it was interesting to learn more about that as well as advice on remaining resilient and persevering even when the path you had planned out for yourself didn’t go as you wished. 

Finally I got to speak with the wonderful Chantel Jordan who is the Marketing director at Human first collective and their agencies LAB and Reflect Digital. She had so much advice for young people going into careers which I found so helpful and being a mentor herself she has a lot of experience guiding students. It was also really interesting to learn more about what a Marketing director does as I feel it may be a similar path to what I would like to go down so I really appreciated speaking with her. 

I overall found the day so amazing and the best experience and I hope to be brought back to do more soon, I loved learning about the set up that has to go into it that’s behind the scenes! Whether that was helping set up mics, learning how to use the social media camera and just being a part of the whole filming process while being on the podcast! 

Tuesday: Shadowing Growth and Paid with Hannah and Mya 

I had such a great time on Tuesday learning about these two different sectors of digital marketing which I didn’t realise existed! In the morning Hannah kindly gave me an overview of growth and all the teams at Reflect Digital on the whole which provided so much insight into possible future career paths. I then sat in on internal and client meetings which gave me insight into the work that goes on behind the websites and promotions I see all the time. The meetings I oversaw where to do with Greenwich Peninsula properties and the new websites they were creating, listening to the updates and feedback each team was giving each other was so interesting and there were a lot of things mentioned that I never realised went into the creation of these sites. 

I was then set a great, well planned and thought out task to do with the growth team and developing Greenwich Peninsula by completing research on competitors in the area. I really enjoyed being involved in the task and creating a findings sheet that I know can help provide insight into what needs to be promoted. For example I found facebook ads competitors had created and how they laid it out, I found that they had a lot of videos as if they were taking someone on a tour. However, they actually primarily focused on the area around where the buildings were and all the amenities offered rather than the expected focus on the apartment insides. Although this was unexpected I did think amenities and the bonus of living in these areas are crucial for apartment selling in London. As there are so many great options of places to live. If someone were to be interested, obviously the aesthetic and layout of the apartment is key and important; however so many are nice, places need to show off why their specific location is better, what they offer that others may not. What perk are there of the locations e.g. transport links, restaurants etc. 

Overall, I loved shadowing Hannah and I just enjoyed the morning on the whole and it has definitely given me an insight into another possible direction for my future so I am so grateful I’ve had the opportunity to experience a little bit from this area. 

I loved shadowing Mya in Paid as I had no idea what really went into the adverts I see everyday on facebook and any Meta sitet! She took me around the set up, how age groups are calculated for target audience and why they are so important so you don’t waste money pushing things out to people who are going to have no interest in your product to keep spending down and allow themselves to promote more of what they actually need. She then showed some examples of the different types of ads, how actual businesses have used it, what research has been done before making these and how to know if they are worth it. I never could have thought this much went into those ads that come up on my feed but it was incredibly interesting to learn about. 

I then had the joy of completing relevant tasks to do with Paid activities, creating ad text and ensuring it meets the brief, fit in the maximum word count and gain attention from the target audience. I then did more ‘competitor snooping’ for Hopes Grove, a hedge company. I really enjoyed seeing who came up where when being searched, what ads they run and how they compare in comparison to Hopes Grove. I then finally planned some potential tests for ads before they were to go live, so not only think of a potential ad but what the hypothesis of it would be and what I believe the outcome may be (also what category it falls under and I did enjoy learning about the different categories). 

It was so insightful to learn how ads are created for meta behind the scenes, the planning, research and testing that goes into this process. It is definitely another area of digital marketing that I didn’t know about so I really appreciated Mya taking the time to teach me about what she does! 

Wednesday: Shadowing Marketing/Events & SEO with Erin, Amy and Ella

I had the absolute best day on Wednesday. I started my day by speaking with the lovely Erin, who told me all about her role in general marketing and how she works for both LAB and Reflect Digital and how she does bits for both and also helps with events that take place. I loved the sound of her role, seems like the best mix of everything and has definitely given me useful insights into where I would like to go in future at this point and I think something similar would definitely be of interest to me. After we spoke for a while I asked about how she got into this career as I love to hear peoples stories. So I heard all about her path into this role which was fascinating to listen to but also very useful as not a single person who I have asked that question to had even remotely similar answers and no one actually planned to actually go into marketing and nor do their education paths reflect that which is comforting to hear! 

Then she told me all about the webinar brunch that was coming up for both Reflect Digital and LAB, what that involves and a little about what previous ones have been like. So I enjoyed hearing about the process of planning events like these. I was then so excited when she told me about the brunch boxes that they send out to clients and how they are made by The Human First Collective and the staff here! I then got the fabulous opportunity to start putting them together which was so so much fun, building the boxes, wrapping all the orange juices with personalised stickers and hand-making each box might not be everyone's cup of tea but definitely is mine!! I loved carefully putting together each one and making a little station at the back of the office to make sure not a single thing was missed and they all look amazing (which I think they did!) all ready for closer to the time before being sent off so I hope the clients love them! 

That took most of the morning but it went so fast, I then did a little bit more event planning with Amy. I assisted in looking for venues for their Christmas party!! As they genuinely need to be planned in June especially for the group size of the Human First Collective and I love the type of thing they were looking at (games places) so I really enjoyed looking into that and how they deal with large christmas parties! I put my ideas onto a doc and Amy seemed to like them so hopefully they will be of use to the company for their Christmas event!

I then shadowed Ella from the SEO department, she was so nice and went through the basics of SEO and took time and care to ensure I understood as it can be a bit confusing the first time you hear about it! We went over what factors can affect location on the google search page and how high it appears which was fascinating as it’s something I use so often and never think about everything that goes on behind it. She then went into explaining how it has also changed over time as now it's not just about naturally being at the top of the page anymore. Now you have to ensure you are right at the top of the organic section as there will be an ai overview above that may block most websites from even being used anymore especially if it was only for information not something like shopping, but then this will be followed by paid ads which therefore get priority on the web page. 

After going through all of this she then set me a task to go through blogs and sights about things for students to do in Berlin to prepare for when Nido expands their student accommodation out there and will need top tips to go on the website! This was really fun writing up all of the descriptions and headers, including key information and finding links for the page so students can be redirected correctly and also then want to stay at this accommodation as if they find their blogs friendly and useful they will feel more inclined to trust them and wish to stay there with friends or on their own. 

Overall I really enjoyed getting to see 2 completely new departments within digital marketing and all of the girls were so sweet, they took their time going through things and it was clear that they were happy to be there and help with my work experience. I don’t think I could have found this level of care from anywhere else. The amount of planning and consideration that went into this was so thoughtful and it’s ler they really care about students' development and that they actually learn skills from their work experience and really made it worthwhile! 

Thursday: Shadowing SEO with Amelia & Yordan

For my final day I shadowed Amelia in the morning who I absolutely loved meeting, she was so sweet. She sent over an hour long SEO basic training video for me to watch and make notes on which was really insightful into SEO, what it is overall not just in specifics, how it can be improved and statistics to why it’s crucial to rank highly for the business. After the video I spoke to her again she answered the questions I had on it and explained the task which was set for me. I had to do some content writing and planning for Potato Dogs for Country Choice. I enjoyed researching the brand, what they sell, how their websites laid out and overall how they sell their other products to try and stay on theme for this product. Once I had written ideas for the meta title and description I then moved onto writing the base description that could go on the website, I had to ensure this included the keyword phrases as this can help boost the website up the page.

We then went through this task, I explained my thought process and received feedback which I am definitely going to take on board if I am ever doing a similar task in the future! I then asked about her career route into marketing which led to her telling me how she studied forensic science/criminology at University and had no thought about marketing until she did some work during uni and realised this could be her career. I absolutely love stories like this as they really do take the pressure off of the decisions I am currently making. So I really appreciated the time I spent speaking with Amelia and it’s great how much I have learnt about SEO in such a short amount of time. 

In the afternoon I then met with Yordan who I had briefly spoken to earlier in the week when I was with Hannah and the growth team/calls. He was an absolute delight and even though it wasn’t related to the set tasks he wanted to spend his own time going through and teaching us some training on Local SEO which I was so grateful for and I loved learning about. He constantly made sure we understood what he was talking about and if we were keeping up which I really appreciated. After this I was set off on a task to find alternative locations for internal error links to go, as sometimes links will be on a website however don’t actually lead anywhere which can be irritating for the user so I went and found potential alternatives for these links that could actually direct consumers somewhere. 

I spoke with Yordan again to go through this and receive feedback which I then went away to correct, but he was so genuinely so kind and an absolute wonder to speak to and work with and I hope I have the opportunity again in the future! 

To wrap up my day I completed writing this blog and reflected on my time here at Reflect Digital and have even discussed a day return with Amy to potentially shadow the digital pr team as I would love to know and learn more about that so I really appreciated her suggesting it! On the whole I have absolutely loved my time and couldn’t have done work experience at a better place, the whole atmosphere in the office is wonderful as I have said previously everyone is so welcoming and kind and it made going into a new office definitely a lot less scary. I hope to be back very soon and will always be grateful for the opportunity that Reflect Digital has given me here this week and I will definitely bring everything I learnt on board with me for the future!