Behind the scenes of Sara’s first week with IOI Ventures

As a recent college graduate I thought I had it all figured out, what I was doing and where I was going career wise...but now, I am officially here to say that I had it all wrong. I majored in psychology at Florida Gulf Coast University and had planned on doing industrial organizational psychology. Yeah...so that one clearly worked out, as I’m now working full time in digital marketing.

I didn’t just jump right into a full time position, I started out as an intern with no experience. My job was scheduling calls, going through emails to find leads and doing small research tasks. After months of working hard and learning every chance I got, Jared decided to take a chance and hire me full time. In just a matter of weeks, I’ve learned how to build websites, run facebook ads, develop content, and so much more.

One aspect of digital marketing that really sparks an interest in me is social media marketing. With everyone constantly scrolling through social media, it’s the perfect opportunity to increase your product’s reach. You know all of those ads that just pop up while you’re scrolling through your feed? Yeah, those have been specifically curated by someone to show up on your feed. It’s pretty cool to be able to say that that “someone” is me. Recently I learned how to create Facebook ads, which is a creative process that challenges you to think of attention worthy headlines, find the perfect picture or video for the ad, and specifically target your audience. Some of Facebook’s features include the ability to choose your target audience’s age, interests, and geographic location down to the mile. So if you’re creating an ad for a restaurant in Sarasota, you can target people with the interest “foodie”, between the ages of 18 and 34, who live within 1 mile of 34320...pretty crazy stuff.

Recently I had the opportunity to work on a Facebook ad in the hospitality industry. I’m currently sitting at 486 leads at 8 cents a click, and if this holds it’ll be a new record for my company. Along the way I will continue to learn more and more about digital marketing and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for me in this industry.