From the moment I began this adventure with MSBA, one of my top priorities was to have a better understanding of what direction I would like to take my professional career. Tonight, Sag Samimi, an Account Manager at Cogent Entertainment Marketing and a former MSBA student, helped us gain a better understanding of digital marketing. As a Digital Marketing Intern at Roc Nation Sports, it was amazing to see this side of the sports industry through someone else’s eyes.

“This creative process is what draws me to digital marketing – the ability to help grow and promote a brand fascinates me. Tonight, Sag opened my eyes to the potential that digital marketing may be the direction for me.”

Sag brought to light the “dark side” of social media. She started off the conversation by reinforcing something all of our parents have told us: social never sleeps, and everything you post online will stay there forever. She demonstrated the reality of this by showcasing several mistakes that various brands and individuals have made on social media. Through this experience, we were given key pointers on making it in digital marketing, including having a sense of urgency, having quick reaction time, and paying attention to detail. Most importantly, you need to think through every single move; even if that requires reading something over 3-4 times to ensure it’s perfect. At the end of the day, it’s the brand or individual’s identity and reputation at stake.

Next, Sag gave us a step-by-step on what it takes to generate photo content for a social campaign – a process that involves brainstorming concepts and creating a shot list. After the pre-shoot preparation, you then go through a six-hour photo shoot where only a few of the thousands of pictures taken will be posted online. Post-shoot involves creating a content calendar to organize the timing of each post and crafting the copy/tags that will be combined with each picture, while also keeping the brand’s voice consistent. The final step is an approval of all these ideas and pictures by the brand.

Even though this creative process is lengthy, I can see it being unbelievably rewarding. After putting in all this hard work, you are physically able to see your time pay off across the brand’s social media channels. This creative process is what draws me to digital marketing – the ability to help grow and promote a brand fascinates me. Tonight, Sag opened my eyes to the potential that digital marketing may be the direction for me.