A Day in the Life: Content Coordinator
I’m Savannah, a Content Coordinator here at Online Optimism. I’ve been here technically for a year because I started as a Specialist (what we call our interns), but my one-year workaversary as a full-time employee will be in May. I never expected to get into digital marketing and I would’ve loved to see a blog like this when I was applying to be a Specialist. Here’s a day in my life (kind of).
Digital marketing is fast-paced and changing. What was common practice last month may get eradicated today, and you’ve always got to be ready to change gears. That being said, marketing is fun, and if you want to work in the Content Department as I do, you get to do a lot of research about anything you could think of.
At Online Optimism, our Content and SEO teams are the same, but they don’t mean the same thing. Content can mean a blog post, newsletter, or perhaps even scriptwriting for a video. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. When people search for information on the internet, we want our clients to come up first. So, link building and guest blogging are essential to increase our client’s site awareness and brand.
To find the most optimal keywords for our clients, we have to conduct keyword research. This research helps us find the keywords our clients’ audiences are searching for and let us know if people are reading these articles.
How I Start My Day and Daily Assignments
By choice, my typical day starts at 8 a.m.; a normal workday begins at 9 but I take advantage of flex hours offered to employees. I start by looking through my email and checking out link-building opportunities that get emailed to me every day.
Link building is an important aspect of any SEO strategy. If I find any journalist queries that fit one of my clients, I’ll write up a response or have a Specialist write one and send it off for client approval. Typically, journalist questions have deadlines for them to be put into consideration. Once we get client approval, I’ll send the information to the journalist and hope our response gets chosen. It could be featured in popular publications like Her Campus, POPSUGAR, or Bustle.
In between finding link-building opportunities and writing responses, our department has our morning meeting at 9 a.m. In this meeting, the team discusses everything we have to do that day, what meetings are on our schedule, and if anyone needs help prioritizing their workload. These meetings typically last about 5 minutes—unless it’s a Monday. On Monday, we discuss what we have to do for the entire week, and we also catch up on what we did during the weekend.
Monthly Breakdown
The fun thing about marketing being fast-paced is that I pretty much never do the same thing every day. One day could be filled with nothing but writing; the next, I could have so many meetings I barely get to write down one word.
Since what I do changes daily, I’ll break down what I do based on the month’s time.
Beginning of the Month
The beginning of the month is usually pretty hectic for me. We send reports out to our clients. Those reports have to be updated with all the new information from the past month. This can sometimes be a little time-consuming when you first start because there’s a lot of data to look at and images to include. However, after a few months, you get the hang of it and it’s easier.
Client reports aren’t always at the beginning of the month; this just happens to be where mine fall. When filling out reports I have to work with different departments on their sections and create highlights for the clients that show them snippets of the best things that happened in their campaign this month. Reports are essential to show clients how their campaign is going, sharing information about pageviews, bounce rates, organic traffic, and more.
Middle of the Month
In the middle of the month, I begin to do keyword research for next month’s content. It’s important to do this early to mid-month so that we have ample time to get clients’ approval if they don’t like some of our ideas. Keyword research can take up a lot of time, sometimes depending on other work I have to do, so I may coordinate with a Specialist to see if they have the capacity or take the days necessary to complete it myself if they don’t. To conduct keyword research, we use Moz and SEMRush. These tools help us determine what the best keywords are for our clients.
Once the keyword research gets completed and the ideas are approved, I’ll assign the blogs to Specialists, or complete them myself if they have a heavier workload, and head on to the following tasks.
End of the Month
At the end of the month, making sure all content is edited and posted is a top priority. We want to ensure that our clients’ blogs stay updated with content to keep their audiences coming back. Typically, by the end of the month, all the content is ready for posting. Posting the content on the client backend only takes a few minutes depending on how many blogs clients have. There are some different things that go into posting blogs, like adding meta titles and descriptions and resizing images to ensure efficient page speed. All of these things help optimize the client’s SEO. If I have time, I try to get as much information done on reports as possible so it doesn’t surprise me when the reports are due.
Additional Tasks
In addition to blog writing and meetings, I also do email marketing, Google My Business content posting, and I regularly check to make sure our client’s blog posts are showing up on Google via Google Search Console.
I also participate a lot in Online Optimism’s culture. I’m the leader of Rainbow Connection, our LGBTQIA affinity group. I regularly attend, and sometimes lead, our DEI book club meetings that we have every month. I’m also in our DEI sub-culture committee, where we work to find events for the company that teach us about DEI initiatives.
Get Your Start in Marketing Today!
Working in marketing has been an adventure because I knew nothing about it before I entered started. You have to be able to learn quickly in this ever-changing environment but seeing the results from your hard work is incredibly rewarding. Because I was previously a Specialist at Online Optimism, I’ve had the opportunity to write for many different types of clients. I’ve written about:
- Bitcoin
- Automotives
- Truck Driving School
- Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
- Plumbing
- Computer Software
- Computer Security
- Construction
- HR Services
- Scriptwriting
- Healthy Food
And much more. The joy of working in content marketing is that you become a mini expert in a lot of different things.
If you’re interested in marketing and want a job that allows you to explore all the corners of the internet, take a look at our Specialist Program. Our Specialist Program is designed to give you real-world experience and at the end of your term, you get a mock interview from the CEO, career advice from our team, and help creating a portfolio, cover letter, and resume.
