How can you get ahead for your marketing, social media and creative career?

If you are interested in a career in marketing and advertising, you need to equip yourself with more skills and knowledge outside of your traditional classroom.  As a Journalism school graduate from L&S, I gained most of my practical job skills via internships and self-learning. I still remember working as the marketing and PR coordinator at the career services office as a junior and managed the promotion and logistics of the annual career fair. This particular experience enabled me to apply my event management skills to my marketing manager job right out of college. I was able to quickly create milestones and checklists for successful event and trade show marketing.

Getting your university degree is essential, but if you want to get ahead, you need to acquire more practical skills that you can offer your future employers. There are many free and paid resources online and I have selected a few below for your reference:

Inbound Marketing Training: Social Media, Email and Content Marketing, Web Analytics, SEO
Inbound Marketing Training | www.honmarketing.com/free-marketing-training

Web Analytics and Paid Search
Google’s Conversion University | http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity

Creative Resources
Smashing Magazine | http://www.smashingmagazine.com

Latest Business, Social Media & Tech News
Mashable | http://www.Mashable.com

Marketing Leader Blogs
Seth Godin  | http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
David Merriman Scott  | http://www.webinknow.com/

Now, you may be wondering if your personality and skills will be compatible for a great marketing career. I wrote an article about this on my blog awhile back (http://www.honmarketing.com/2010/03/essential-skills-for-versatile-marketing-professionals/) and you may find it useful.

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/samuelhon), Twitter (twitter.com/honmarketing) or my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/honmarketing). Check out my blog (www.honmarketing.com/blog) for more marketing, design and social media resources. Good luck and feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

Samuel Hon is an award-winning marketing director, social media strategist and designer with extensive experience in corporate marketing communication and design. Samuel, a Stanford Certified Project Manager, received his B.S. in Journalism - Strategic Communication with Honors and Distinction from the University of Wisconsin- Madison. He currently serves as the Vice President at the American Advertising Federation - Sacramento Ad Club.