I Signed Up For A Udacity’s Digital Marketing Nano Degree, Here’s Why

Mpho Mphego
3 min readFeb 20, 2022

The Story

I am sure the first question running through your mind is, why did a Software Engineer decide to sign up for a Udacity’s Digital Marketing Nano Degree. I am sure I am not the only one who has had this thought. It’s simple really, the world as we know it is driven by the internet and technology has been evolving at a rapid pace.

Ever since humans learned how to trade, marketing has been in place. Marketing is all about connecting with your audience at the right place and time. With the rise of the internet, this means that you can connect with your audience easily on the internet through digital marketing strategies.

Digital marketing is in the middle of it all since it is an internet-based industry which is a set of online tools and marketing techniques that are used to reach out to the target audience. Online marketing has become a part of the modern business world and it is a very important part of the business strategy. It is the sole source for companies to generate leads and sales as they are already well aware of the consumer’s pattern of purchasing and searching behaviours.

As software engineers, we are already Technology Professionals. We are aware of the latest trends and technologies and familiar with the role of technology in business or market development. We are considered problem solvers and the role of a digital marketing professional is quite similar in a way that they can use their skills to solve the problems of the customers.

The other motivation behind the decision to take Udacity’s Digital Marketing Nanodegree is that it is a great opportunity to learn and grow as a professional while learning new skills and technologies outside my comfort zone. The skills learned would benefit my brand as they would help me reach and understand my target audience. Help grow the number of people interested in my brand the type of content generated on this blog site by using social media to amplify my message/content, make content discoverable in search, run ad campaigns and advertise on various platforms. Additionally, learn how display and video ads work and how to market with email, and measure and optimize with Google Analytics.

Note: This blog post is part of the live project, in which I need to create a blog post and market it on various social media platforms.

The How

So why Udacity in particular? Having gone through numerous other Udacity nano degrees gave me confidence in the quality of content and projects that I can expect to get from Udacity. This is a beginner program (no prerequisite knowledge required), so you can immediately start learning! Not managing your digital presence properly is planning to fail and with limited knowledge in digital marketing, I decided to take the plunge and enrolled in this Nanodegree.

The sections in this Nanodegree are broken down into:

  • Marketing Fundamentals — Explains the Digital Marketing Framework
  • Content Strategy — How to create effective content, distribute/promote this content and then analyse it.
  • Social Media Marketing — This is how you ended up here!
  • Social Media Advertising — Using the Facebook business manager
  • Search Engine Optimization — All things SEO like why backlinks are important, how to perform keyword research and how to optimise a site for — SEO.
  • Search Engine Marketing — How to use google ads.
  • Display Advertising — How to evaluate the results of a display ad campaign and create a presentation based on this.
  • Email Marketing — How to use Mailchimp to create an email campaign for our project.
  • Measure and optimize with Google Analytics — Learning the ins and outs of Google analytics.

See the full syllabus

Reference

- Udacity Digital Marketing Nanodegree

- How Can Digital Marketing Benefit Software Engineers?

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