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Community Manager Story, Dayna; Swimming to Smurfit
When competitive swimmer Dayna joined Socio Local we were greeted with a focused, driven and kind young woman. Dayna has worked as Senior Community Manager At Socio Local for the last year and recently undertook the decision to do a Masters in Digital Marketing with Smurfit Business School in Dublin.
As a business we take the development of our team seriously, we do our best to help them navigate their careers with us and in time perhaps with others. Daynas story from Marketing at Exeter University, to Socio Local and now to Smurfit is a story we wanted to share as it may in turn help others.
So, here is Dayna telling her story...
Marketing as an industry is extremely fast-paced and exciting, with endless career opportunities, areas to specialise in, opportunities to travel… the list goes on! However, Marketing was originally not my first choice. As a competitive swimmer, my plan had always been to pursue a career in Sports Science as it seemed the most obvious choice given my athletic background. It was only until the final few weeks before my course choices were due (and after numerous discussions with my parents and career advisors) that I decided to think about a career in business. There were more job opportunities, areas I could branch out to and given science wasn’t my strongest subject... it made sense to go down the business route!
I’ve always loved art, design and anything that required a creative flair, so a degree in Marketing was the perfect fit for me. I studied Management with Marketing for my undergraduate degree at the University of Exeter, but it wasn’t until my final year when I started to specialise in Marketing. I really enjoyed this part of my degree and found the Marketing modules very interesting and exciting, so when it came time to start thinking about what I wanted to do as a career I had my mind set on a career in Marketing.
Once I graduated and was ready to take on the ‘real’ world, I eventually landed my first job as a Digital Marketing Executive at a small start-up in Dublin. I stayed in this position for over a year and gained huge amounts of experience, however given the size of the company there weren't many career opportunities for me to work towards and I felt as though I was getting too comfortable. What I needed was a new challenge. It wasn’t until I came to Socio Local that my learning about the Marketing and digital world accelerated hugely, and I was faced with many opportunities and challenges to help push and improve myself every week.
From the experience gained since starting at Socio Local, I now have a clear vision of where I want to go with my career and what I need to do to get there. Earlier this year I started to make a list of what I needed to do to reach my goals, and the first box that had to be ticked off was getting my masters degree! The University College Dublin (UCD) Smurfit business school is currently ranked among the best in the world, and given many of my family members are currently studying there/have graduated, UCD was at the top of my list to pursue my masters degree. I was absolutely delighted when I got accepted into the MSc in Digital Marketing and couldn’t wait to get the Autumn Trimester started!
Although I had my mind set on taking this big new step in my career, I wasn’t ready to leave Socio Local just yet and am very grateful to still be working with the Community Management Team part-time. By the end of my masters degree, I hope to be able to come back with more skills and knowledge that I can apply to my work and to the business in order to push myself and reach new heights in my career.
I strongly believe that the knowledge and understanding of marketing theory from my undergraduate degree coupled with the practical experience I have gained from working in the field will really help me throughout my masters. A large majority of what we will be learning will be coupled with opportunities to work alongside a range of businesses, which I believe will be extremely beneficial to help build my skills as a Digital Marketer! I am really looking forward to the opportunities, challenges and new experiences that are ahead of me this year and to get the first step towards reaching my career goals ticked off!
