noob-guide-online-marketingI’m the new guy. New to Digital Aptitude, and new to the digital marketing industry as a whole. Because of this, the amount of stuff that I am learning on a day-to-day basis cannot be overstated! Aside from the much needed and much appreciated help from my colleagues, blog posts regarding the current state of the industry have been a lifesaver.
Here is a list of five of my favorite articles that have helped get me through my first month of digital marketing.

First Things First

Before I give you my list, its important to reiterate that I had ZERO experience coming into digital marketing, so before my first day, I read both the SEO & social media guides provided by MOZ at:
http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-social-media
These two guides laid the foundation, allowing me to understand what I was getting myself into. And as with most things, as time passed and I worked alongside some of the best, my understanding of digital marketing began to improve. The first couple of days I started out slow, but after only a few days I started to contribute to a variety of projects, including SEO & social media campaigns that I had learned about in the guides above.

First Month

To me, SEO and social media were such broad terms, and still are for that matter, so what I have been doing my first month has been bits and pieces of SEO & social media campaigns. The guides gave me big-picture stuff, but soon it was time for hands-on-experience to fully understand how to get there.

Top 5 Blog Posts

  1. Before I could get into, or even understand the basics of the industry, posts that gave me an overall view were the most helpful. This post by John Doherty in particular gave me some much-needed insight into the 5 things he wish he knew while working at an agency, giving me lessons from a seasoned vet in retrospect. Priceless!
    http://moz.com/blog/5-things-i-wish-i-knew-as-an-agency-marketer-whiteboard-friday
  2. This post by Rand Fishkin was one of the first post I remember reading. Again, this one offered another overall view of the industry and what not to do.
    http://moz.com/blog/the-best-way-to-suck-at-marketing-whiteboard-friday
  3. As I began to work with content and understand the difference between content and good content, this post by Aleyda Solis gave me some truly amazing tips on how to create the best, most relevant content for your clients.
    http://moz.com/blog/identifying-blog-topics-relevant-to-your-audience
  4. The last article gave me a guide for creating content, this next article gave me the tools.
    http://smallbiztrends.com/2013/05/blog-ideas-for-posts-tools.html
  5. This last one came from my love of video, and the power I believe it has in digital marketing.
    http://www.subhub.com/blog/top-10-websites-for-video-editors/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=top-10-websites-for-video-editors

So there you have it!
Although there were many blog posts read, these were 5 of my favorite during my first month in digital marketing. Because of these, and the help from my colleagues, my understanding of the industry has increased exponentially. Now, not only can I see the big picture stuff learned early on, but I also have the basic tools to help my team realize the goals and objectives for each of our clients.
Image courtesy of:
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/ingredients-of-great-content/