My experience of doing the Digital Mums course

I’ve finished. I’ve just finished 6 months of intensive training with Digital Mums to become a Social Media Manager. Wow. Completing my last assignment, submitting it to Digital Mums and to my client was a huge relief. I just can’t believe it’s done. However now that it’s done I thought that I would share my experience of doing the Digital Mums course with you all.

My background is advertising and marketing, and having worked in an advertising agency for 10 years and therefore have marketing experience, I opted to do the Digital Mums Associate Programme. This is the most expensive of the courses on offer however it means that you are partnered with a live client. So this means that you run a campaign on their live social media platforms and take control of these for 8 weeks.

I was really fortunate to be paired up with a lovely client, or Programme Partner as Digital Mums call them, and I think that this made the entire Digital Mums course so much easier for me. We had a really good relationship, which made sharing ideas and getting these approved really efficient, and therefore I could be quick to make updates on my clients channels depending on how the campaign was going, plus be given the trust and responsibility to fully run their channels without too much of their input.

Digital Mums take the responsibility for selecting your client, unfortunately it’s not something that you will have a say in. But where possible they will try and partner you up with a client who matches your skills and interests. However if you end up with a client you’re not 100% keen on try not to worry. Your client is only partnered up with you for your learning benefit, and at the end of the course you do not need to keep working with them, although I know that many graduates do end up working with their client after the course which is a great plus point.

There are so many benefits to the course to keep you motivated throughout and that is mainly your peer group. At the start of the course my co-hort was broken down into smaller groups, forming our peer group. We were given the name The Nigellas and I remember being quite nervous at our first live Google Hangout on a Monday night. It was teamed with wine, which made it a little easier, and basically it was an hour of getting to know each other and why we had signed up to the course. After that we created a What’s App group and have been messaging each other pretty much every day with our dilemmas and bonuses about the course. I must say that having this group has been a huge help to my learning and to keep me going during some more challenging times.

As well as this Digital Mums provide lots of online support on their platform; The Mothership, where you can ask them any question related to the course, or find the answers you are looking for raised by current or past graduates. Remember that no question is silly, and it has most likely been asked before. There are a couple of check-in points during the course where you will have a group meeting and one-to-one meetings with your social media guide. These are hugely valuable, helping to steer you back on track if you’re having a bit of a wobble (believe me these do happen) or to offer support on any additional tactics you could use in your campaign.

When you’re campaign goes live, it’s an exciting, nerve wracking and adrenaline fuelled time. Mine went live right before going to toddler group on a Monday morning, and I remember checking my client’s social channels on my phone every minute. You’ll find that as the campaign progresses you’ll get used to checking at certain times throughout the day, so that you’re not responding or searching for content constantly.

Then it’s all about scheduling. I have never scheduled so much before in my entire life, not even for my own blog. I think I could use Hootsuite and Tailwind with my eyes closed. I become efficient in bulk scheduling for a weeks in advance, which made the campaign so much easier to manage, and it meant that I could focus on the campaign itself rather than promoting content. A huge lesson I learnt is that it’s not all about you. A massive part of the Digital Mums course is sharing other peoples content, as this is one of the only ways you will get interaction back and people to support your campaign.

The course itself hasn’t all been singing and dancing, there have been some low points, and I think that anyone doing the Digital Mums course will know about these. There are late nights, there is the feeling that your campaign is not quite right, and then there is the feeling of self doubt. However your peer group will help you to work through these. Alongside this there are also some pretty tricky assignments especially the assignment to define your user personas. I found this really tricky to do as it’s something I had never done before. It took hours and I was really concerned about getting approval on it. But once it was completed and signed off the relief was huge, and this document forms the backbone to your campaign, it’s who your audience are and who you will be talking to.

As I mentioned previously your peer group and Digital Mums are all there to support you along the way. And I think that without my peer group and our What’s App group the course would have been very different for me. The people you meet are one of the best things about the course, and your peer group is needed to keep you motivated. Remember that 6 months of online learning is a long time, so it’s great to have human interaction along the way.

Next up for me is the nervous time of waiting for the results on my final report which I should have back  in the next couple of weeks. I’ll then be moved onto the DM Collective Facebook group which is where all the graduates come together to help support each other with finding work and to allow graduates to discuss any problems they have once they are working. I’ll also be doing the “Do The Hustle” course that Digital Mums offer to all graduates to help you become a freelancer and find work.

I’m really looking forward to the next stage, and seeing what the future holds. Digital Mums was a brilliant course to do, it kept my mind focused and occupied for 6 months. It took over my life in a good way, and I just hope that the course pays off and I find work as a Social Media Manager.

I’ll keep you posted….

Claire x