I Signed Up For A Udacity’s Digital Marketing Nano Degree, Here’s Why
5 Min Read
The Story
I am sure the first question running through your mind is, why did a Software Engineer decide to sign up for a Udacity’s Digital Marketing Nano Degree. It’s simple really, the world as we know it is driven by the internet and technology has been evolving at a rapid pace.
Ever since humans learned how to trade, marketing has been in place. Marketing is all about connecting with your audience at the right place and time. With the rise of the internet, this means that you can connect with your audience easily on the internet through digital marketing strategies.
Digital marketing is in the middle of it all since it is an internet-based industry which is a set of online tools and marketing techniques that are used to reach out to the target audience. Online marketing has become a part of the modern business world and it is a very important part of the business strategy. It is the sole source for companies to generate leads and sales as they are already well aware of the consumer’s pattern of purchasing and searching behaviours.
As software engineers, we are already Technology Professionals. We are aware of the latest trends and technologies and familiar with the role of technology in business or market development. We are considered problem solvers and the role of a digital marketing professional is quite similar in a way that they can use their skills to solve the problems of the customers.
Having worked as an Engineer for the past 11+ years I decided to learn Digital Marketing Nanodegree through Udacity instead of opting for the traditional and mainstream university full-time course in which I do not have time for. The motivation behind considering a Digital Marketing Nanodegree is to grow as a professional while learning new skills and technologies outside my comfort zone.
The skills learned from the course will benefit my brand as they will help me reach and understand my target audience better. Help grow the number of people interested in my brand and the type of content generated on this blog site by using social media to amplify my message/content, make content discoverable in search, run ad campaigns and advertise on various platforms. Additionally, learn how video ads work and how to market my content via email(mailchimp), and measure and optimize with Google Analytics.
Note: This blog post is part of the live project, in which I need to create a blog post and market it on various social media platforms.
The How
So why Udacity in particular? Having gone through numerous other Udacity nano degrees gave me confidence in the quality of content and projects that I can expect to get from Udacity. This is a beginner program (no prerequisite knowledge required), so you can immediately start learning unlike with mainstream university courses! Not managing your digital presence properly is planning to fail and with limited knowledge in digital marketing, I decided to take the plunge and enrolled in this Nanodegree.
The sections in this Nanodegree are broken down into:
- Marketing Fundamentals - Explains the Digital Marketing Framework
- Content Strategy - How to create effective content, distribute/promote this content and then analyse it.
- Social Media Marketing - This is how you ended up here!
- Social Media Advertising - Using the Facebook business manager
- Search Engine Optimization - All things SEO like why backlinks are important, how to perform keyword research and how to optimise a site for - SEO.
- Search Engine Marketing - How to use google ads.
- Display Advertising - How to evaluate the results of a display ad campaign and create a presentation based on thi 4s.
- Email Marketing - How to use Mailchimp to create an email campaign for our project.
- Measure and optimize with Google Analytics - Learning the ins and outs of Google analytics.
You can find the full syllabus here