I live in a small town called Stroud just outside of Gloucester. I’m currently going into my second year of College Sixth Form for the grammar school, Marling. I study Graphic Design, Physical Education, Geography and Psychology. My desire for a while was to aim for a Marketing/Advertising Company as a potential work placement, especially as my college pushes me to know what I want to do in 4 years time. I hoped that my experience at Sift would tell me more about that type of company. I am mainly interested in Graphic design as a career choice and there are plenty at Sift, I was able to speak to one of them, Kai, who was very informative and helpful, he told me everything he did and how he got to Sift.
When I'm not at college I'm doing the usual stuff like hanging out with pals, nothing too crazy, well not to post here anyway!
At Sift I had the very fortunate opportunity to complete a variety of tasks for a variety of great people for my work shadowing week. Every time I worked with someone different they took the time to introduce themselves privately and get to know me as well. Within days of working along side new people I felt as if I’ve worked there for months.
Day 1
After being introduced, joined by a lot of hand shaking, I worked with Dan Izzard who’s one of the Audience Marketing Managers. He’s very good at what he does but would never say it. Firstly with the help of Dan, I created threads using UKBusinessForums and Pablo to then publish on the Sift Media twitter page. After that Dan made me join BusinessZone so I could reply to some articles which interested me on the page. It’s a very interesting website and right now nothing really ‘tickled my fancy’ but I know in a business perspective it’s a very useful tool for information. Last thing I did for the day was come up with some gaming puns for Dan to use for the Level Up program on The Pitch. – Thank you Dan.
Here some popular examples of the buffers I created:
This buffer is a relevant topic to talk about for companies, because modern technology is taking over and there are far easier and more efficient ways of advertising their company. Flyers and Leaflets are old fashioned.
Pokemon go is a growing sensation, and is extremely popular at the moment, for all kinds of audiences and also many small and local companies want that popularity and this represents/suggests a way for these companies to harness this craze.
Day 2
I worked with Hannah Pinchbeck, who’s a Marketing Events Manager. The first thing she had me do research on competitive companies who also host executive events for senior decision makers. She also gave me a lot of information which was very useful for me, regarding my future or what type of jobs I’d go for. After that I had to research for upcoming events for all relevant topics for Sift. Finally I had some fun creating Email newsletters for The Practice Excellence Programme sessions hosted by Sift Media. – Thanks Hannah!
Day 3
I worked along-side Triana Murtagh who’s the Demands Generation Manager and fortunately my desk was situated right next to hers. Triana provided me a range of tasks to do for the day. Firstly, I provided an image for a blog she was going to publish which actually is a lot harder than you think! I used a website called iStock to find it. Secondly, I went on to buffer and created some tweets to queue for the blog and previous blogs Triana published. After this, Triana showed and explained to me what an infographic was and had me look over one to see whether it correlated with the updated version. Next, I reported some monthly newsletter stats, sounds boring, but actually was quite interesting especially the process. Lastly I collected data from Surveys and presented it in the SMB Banking/Finance Survey Promotion Report. – Thank you very much Triana.
Day 4
On the last day I wrote this blog you are reading right now, with the help of Esther Brice who’s the other Audience Marketing Manager. – Thank you Esther!
My time at Sift was an experience I would love to do again. It was very insightful and helpful especially for me. It helped me realise what type of company I would strive to work for and which fields (the few I worked with) provided for specific areas. The work environment at Sift is something you’d rarely find anywhere else, almost like a mini Google. Everyone was so nice and welcoming to me, I felt at home within four days. I was proud to contribute to Sift in every way I did. My only regret from the experience is that I couldn’t stay any longer.
Thank you again to everyone at Sift for taking the time out of their day to give me one of the most useful opportunities and experience I’ve had so far and making me feel welcome. Special thanks to Ian Robins. And no, like a lot of other colleagues there, I still couldn’t describe what Sift is in a single title.
It was great to have Joe with us this week, what a legend he even brought us cookies and a lovely thank you card!! He can come again!
This buffer is a relevant topic to talk about for companies, because modern technology is taking over and there are far easier and more efficient ways of advertising their company. Flyers and Leaflets are old fashioned.
Pokemon go is a growing sensation, and is extremely popular at the moment, for all kinds of audiences and also many small and local companies want that popularity and this represents/suggests a way for these companies to harness this craze.
