A month at Seaside Creative...

Well, I’ve been at Seaside Creative for over a month now and I have to say that is feels like yesterday that I walked through the scary double doors of the office building and waited to be interviewed. Now I’m sat at my own desk in that same office building, busy working on various tasks to help the running of multiple clients’ social media pages among other things such as blog writing, database handling and working towards completing my Google Digital Garage course online.

Being an apprentice in a small, fast growing agency allows me to work closely with the Directors who have a combined 50 years of marketing experience on the photography, video and content writing and PR side of things. With such a huge amount of experience around me I feel I am developing a holistic view of marketing which I would not be getting if I had a placement in a narrow-fielded agency or business.

Seaside Creative deals with a wide range of clients who all have different needs – I could be looking at magazine writing one minute and photo editing the next, or anything in-between. Being exposed to so much diversity everyday truly opens my eyes, allowing me to take in so much information about so many different types of marketing campaigns and how an agency goes about running them to make them efficient for that specific client.

It’s surprising to see how each client is completely different in how they want things run, even booking ads with a magazine can be executed completely differently depending on the different targets and goals of the client. I have learnt that marketing is unique to every business and in order for an agency to be effective in delivering a campaign, they have to be able to fully understand what a client wants and what their goals are. This has increased my appreciation of all the experience I’m surrounded by on a daily basis and how long it takes to get to that level of knowledge and professionalism.

I feel that I am in good hands with the Seaside Creative team, who always point me in the right direction and encourage me to learn in active and practical ways.

What have I been up to?

One thing I’ve been reading up on this past couple of weeks is the algorithms behind every social media platform. Algorithms are mathematical equations and the ones on social media sites are based on two factors; algorithmic quality (so the quality of the content in question) and the previous history of the user (actions and reactions users have had to specific content before). 

The infamous Facebook algorithm considers over 100,000 factors. All in those few seconds it takes to load your feed, how crazy is that! These algorithms determine what users see on their feeds when they first open the social media app, or website. 

There are different algorithms taking care of different aspects of the social media experience, but the most influential kind of algorithm is one that controls the flow of information people receive as it helps shape their thinking and understanding of news and events. Research carried out by the Pew Research Centre found that in 2017, two thirds of American adults (about 166 million people) said they get at least ‘some of their news’ from social media.

Understanding these algorithms is fundamental to a social marketer, who’s main aim is to get engaging content seen by as many relevant people as possible and build up a following. Which is why when I have some spare time in between my usual duties, I feel that it is vital for me to read up on topics that are ever-changing, such as social media algorithms, to expand my knowledge. The better my social marketing skills are, the more I can improve my contribution to the Seaside Creative team.