Oh boy, this week had me by the throat! In a good way of course. It was social media week and we got to talk to the best of the best in tech and got to peek behind the mystical curtain of what goes into these apps that we use daily.
Monday: Cara from Penguin Random House kicked off the week with a great session on how she and her co-worker run the social media department at her company. She taught us an interesting technique that advertisers use to market to consumers called the Pitch, Plunge and Play method. We even got to have some interactive activities to split into groups and work together to create campaigns for our assigned book. My group had Jack Reacher and came up with a game named âStreet Reacherâ (thanks josh!) and the idea mustâve been good because we won!! Canât wait to get my book courtesy of Cara and penguin.
Tuesday: Iâm going in tonight, RIP that p-⌠enough of that. Tuesdayâs sessions started with us watching each otherâs Cultural Tribe videos and Iâm honestly so inspired by the talent this group has. The most surprising video goes to Lamar for being so funny and entertaining! Then we had a session led by Emma, Alessandra and Thuy with the amazing Tiktok, the home of the RENEGADE, RENEGADE, RENEGADE đđ˝. Tiktok is hands down my most used and favourite Âright now so it was so fun getting to know the behind the scenes of it all. We even had a task to make a Tiktok which, I wonât lie, did make me a bit anxious to post as Iâm more of a viewer than a content creator. Nonetheless, it was really fun and since I finished early, I got to speak with Emma and Thuy more about my love for the platform and our favourite current trends.
Wednesday: Day 3 was a bit of a throwback for me as it was about Snapchat and I hadnât used the app as frequently as I used to. After the session though, I look forward to seeing the future of Snapchat. This was a full jampacked day of learning and I was a bit surprised by the content as the session leaders Adam and Eugene talked to us about Snapchatâs use of AR and how they were developing more ways to get it even better. In this session, we got into teams and worked on our Jam board presentations creating our own campaigns for Leviâs sustainable WellThread range. This was a really fun exercise, not only was it exciting using Jam Board for the first time, it was great getting to know my group and having deep/funny conversations. P.S my question for the people at Snapchat seemed to have led to people making certain assumptions about me đ now I will not confirm or deny these assumptions but I will say I am a grown woman now and Iâll do what I want ya nasties!
Thursday: Now speaking of a throwback for Thursdayâs session, we were joined by the lovely Facebook/Instagram who was led by Laurian and Josh, with guest speakers from the company. It was a full day with loads of information and had some of my favourite speakers. They were super inspiring and full of wisdom, I genuinely wanted to sign up and work for them there and then! Joe especially made me feel so proud of speaking my truth in any environment I go into. I loved how unfiltered and straight up he explained his experience was as a person of colour going into the media/tech world. It made me realise that when weâre making people in white-dominated industries uncomfortable by our presence, I know weâre making way for change.
Friday: To wrap up the week we had two different sessions. Searchlight kicked off the morning we a CV/Cover letter workshop which helped me a lot. Anything I was confused about previously was answered by the searchlight team. Canât wait to improve my CV with their advice. The afternoon session was all about Twitter, the session was a really interesting one as Iâm someone who doesnât use Twitter much. I tend to be more of a scroller than a tweeter. We learned about how Twitter connects brands to their platform and helps them navigate the world of Twitter as Iâm sure itâs not like other platforms they market on. I really found the conversation with Rob and Jasmine engaging and educating. Rob is an account manager and I got to ask him what advice heâd give me for a job role I applied for as itâs a role he works with closely and it really helped me out. Jasmine is someone I definitely look up to as I can relate to her journey.
All in all, it was a terrific week and I canât wait for the weeks upcoming.
