Coming into the Kickstarter scheme I had next to no knowledge of social media, beyond mindlessly scrolling my personal Instagram and Twitter. I had never really seen it as a space in which I could ever gain an understanding or create content.

Starting on Week One – Day One I had only my experiences from my creative writing degree to fall back on and no real technical expertise, yet from the start, I have been able to grow my knowledge from what was basically nothing, to a point where I am beginning to feel confident enough create content, even within my first two weeks.

Clearly, this is just the beginning of a long process, 6 months of industry education and work, and there will be much more to learn as time goes on, however, there has been the clear implementation of the building blocks I will require to make a success of myself in this world.

It Felt Daunting At First

It was, of course, daunting to come into this process with little to no experience and over the first couple of days, I would be lying if I said I was not a little overwhelmed. This is, beyond the learning, a work environment and there are expectations of independent study and initiative to be taken from the start. I cannot say that I am a naturally confident person and so it took a few days for me to get into the routine and begin to feel like I knew enough to put myself out there, even now this is something that I would love to improve.

This is aided by the course. These first two weeks have been well-paced and the resources on offer throughout are only growing meaning the accessible content will be even more tailored as more people come into the process. The daily zoom calls have offered support and a human interaction that is at risk of being lost in a work-from-home-based scheme and allows for questions to be raised and answered early meaning little to no time is wasted or lost when looking at each day’s tasks.

Getting On With My Boss

Personally, I have struck up what I feel is a great rapport and working relationship with my boss and am eager to begin to grow their social media, which is a further motivation to take in and learn the areas demonstrated in the training. We have looked at an overview of platforms and done baseline assessments of where our boss is at with a view to measuring the growth we hope to achieve. This has covered all common social media sites as well as WordPress websites, SEO, and future planning.

Carole and Garry’s Support

Garry and Carole have shown a willingness to work with us and offer support wherever they can, offering access to more specific or targeted training that we may want. They have also provided wider experience, such as visits to online networking events, all of which helps to build understanding and confidence in this industry.

As I mentioned, this is not an area I ever saw myself in, but the first two weeks of this training program have given me renewed confidence in my ability and future job prospects. There is now motivation for me to move forward and enter a world of work where I can not only get by but thrive.

Josh Trowern, July 2021, Think Be Do Leadership