Article written by Emma McMullan, Lowland RFCA’s Communications Officer.
Over the past two months, I’ve been lucky enough to enhance my communications and marketing skills by working my way through a Level 2 Digital Promotions for Business course through Glasgow Kelvin College and Digital Skills Scotland.
The course covered a wide array of topics relating to online marketing, outlining how digital promotion strategies have evolved in line with new technology such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence. There was also an emphasis on how to tailor your organisation’s messaging to different social media platforms, and how to increase audience reach through a combination of digital (online) and traditional (offline) media.
As the course was entirely online, I enjoyed the freedom and flexibility to progress through the course at my own pace and in my own time. I was also very fortunate that my manager, who had recommended the course to me in the first place, allowed me to set aside a couple of hours one day a week to work on it, helping me to maintain my work-life balance.
One of the key lessons that I took away from this course was that on average, most people spend around eight seconds looking at an online post before scrolling on to the next one, and that audiences tend to ‘switch off’ or move away from online videos that last longer than three minutes. Not only is this a fascinating insight into the general public’s online habits and behaviours, but it drives home the importance of creating content that is eye-catching, concise and gets the message across almost immediately when competing for attention against thousands of other pictures, posts and videos.
Although the course has a commercial slant, a lot of the marketing and communications strategies could easily be adapted for our Defence setting. I would highly recommend the course to anyone interested in boosting their online presence and raising awareness of their brand. The course is fully funded, the study material is easily accessible and additional support is available from a number of qualified tutors.
To find out more about the course, click here.
