Wednesday, May 17, 2017

I did a Thing and I'm a little bit proud of it

When I set out on this digital journey, my ultimate dream was to be a professional blogger, sitting at home in my underwear (on cold days at least) pumping out blog posts and getting fabulously wealthy.

I quickly realised it wasn't as easy as all that, and that I knew virtually nothing about being a professional blogger.

So I got a job at a marketing agency as a "copywriter". I put "copywriter" in inverted commas because within the space of a week I was designing marketing materials and writing the company blog. Before long I was wireframing websites, building web pages, and literally anything else that I wasn't abjectly hopeless at.

After a short time there I got a job at a real agency and found myself handling a portfolio of 15 SEO clients, making sales calls, writing blog posts and social media updates, and ghost-writing magazine editorials.

Fast-forward to now and after handling a giant worldwide social media account and several massive AdWords campaigns, I'm about to start a new job as the digital marketing coordinator at a NFP.

All of this from just wanting to be gainfully unemployed...

Anyhow, in amongst all this, I helped a friend of mine who runs a personalised beverage company called Brewtopia. They sell personalised beverages - you order your beer, cider, water, or wine from their website, design your own label, then get it all shipped to your door.

It's pretty cool.

The Thing that I did that I'm a little bit proud of was a small project involving a one-page website aimed at the on-premise cafe and bar sector. Essentially, if you own a cafe, bar, corner store or speakeasy, you can order house-branded drinks and sell your own stuff instead of stuff from the supermarket.

I helped them design and build the page, set up the hosting, install the SSL certificate - all things that a few years ago, I wouldn't have even known how to spell.

So... this is the Thing, and I'm a little bit proud of it because I didn't learn it in school. I taught myself how to do it, I had a great time, and I ended up helping a friend with it.