 Now we hear from Victoria Dixon, Social Media Officer with NorthLink Ferries. After initially leaving school at 16 to become an Apprentice Jeweller, Victoria returned to complete an art portfolio and was accepted to study at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen. Following her graduation, she returned to Orkney and studied for an HNC in Business Administration at Orkney College and worked as a freelance Graphic Designer before setting up her own graphic design and photography business. In 2013, she joined NorthLink as Social Media Assistant, before progressing to her current role.  Can you describe a typical day in your job?
The main tasks include monitoring all our social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn as well as Trip Advisor daily to make sure they are up to date with relevant content and queries are responded to. My days are a mix of updating social media, designing, and creating graphics, posters etc, assisting the marketing team with content creation and sourcing, photography and customer service. How did you end up in this role? I left school at 16 years old to become an Apprentice Jeweller at Ortak. That didn’t work out due to downscaling of the business, so I returned to school to prepare a portfolio for entry to Art College. I was successful and studied at Gray’s College of Art in Aberdeen. I returned to Orkney and had various jobs whilst I studied an HNC in Business Administration at Orkney College. I did a lot of freelance graphic design work for various businesses in Orkney, eventually setting up my own photograph enhancement and graphic design business. It was during this time I really learned a lot about social media through various online courses and self-taught skills. I was employed by NorthLink in 2013 and have progressed from Social Media Assistant to my current position Social Media Officer. What is the best thing about your job? The best thing about my job is how flexible it is, I work from home and am essentially on call to respond to enquiries through our platforms. I enjoy how varied my tasks are and the opportunity to still use my creative skills to develop graphics for various competition posts, posters, blogs and on-board activities. There has also been the opportunity to undertake some training whilst in my position and I really appreciate that. What is the worst thing about your job? I wouldn’t consider anything as the ‘worst’ part of my job but being on call to respond to enquiries via social media can be quite demanding, especially when our services are disrupted due to severe weather. There is a need for content to be monitored, created, and posted several times a day on multiple channels and it can be more time consuming than people think. You must learn to react quickly and be able to pull things together at short notice. I like a challenge though! What skills do you need to undertake your role? An understanding of how each social media platform works is important. A huge part of my role involves communication, creativity, writing ability and content curation. And lastly, I would say flexibility, being able to respond and react efficiently. What qualifications do you have? 8 Standard Grades 3 SQA Highers Degree in Art & Design HNC Business Administration Digital Marketing Institute Certified Digital Marketing Associate Would you recommend this job to young people, if so why? Absolutely, when you work in social media you are in a position that gets you talking with actual people and encourage them to actively engage with your brand. It can be exciting seeing the effect your work can have on those people in real time. It is a position that allows for creativity and an industry that rapidly changes meaning you are constantly learning new things. Every day is different. Visit NorthLink Ferries on: Website: www.northlinkferries.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/NorthLinkFerries Twitter: twitter.com/NLFerries Instagram: www.instagram.com/northlink_ferries Comments are closed.
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