My Time At Zelst

When I entered the office on Monday morning, I was surprised to find I had my own desk, computer and notepad and pen all ready for me. After a quick introduction to everyone (who were all extremely friendly from the get-go!) I sat down and thought “what am I going to be doing all week?” and “what is it exactly that Zelst does?”

I had been emailed a list of activities from Sophie, most of which I had never done before and was more than happy to get started.

I began my week completing a social media task with help from Saf. I was looking at two clients, The Japanese Shop and Rug Traders, looking at their websites and social media, alongside their competitors. Since I had never particularly thought about the importance of social media in business, this task helped me start to undercover how different companies use it as a platform to promote themselves – an essential part of modern industry.

This insight into marketing I really feel will aid my understanding of key modules in Business Management which I hope to study at University, as over my week I have experienced first-hand the relevance of digital marketing. Digital growth marketing is significantly related what I hope to study considering how influential the internet has already been on business internationally, and how in the future the impact of online will only grow.

Another task I completed was for Carl, in which I had to write two blogs for their clients. The first blog was on jazz festivals in Nice and the other on last-minute family holidays, two topics I had little knowledge on. However, after a quick brief from Carl, I learned how to research and write a blog which I actually found really interesting. I also began to realise the importance of blogs in the world of SEO, and all the clients’ websites I visited had one.

It was also such a huge surprise when my blogs were posted live on their clients’ websites! Not only was the blog writing great experience (I might start my own blog now!), I felt I contributed to Zelst’s work, which was an amazing opportunity.

Later in the week, I began to question again “what does Zelst do?” and came to my own understanding. One aspect of their work is to improve their client’s visibility online and increase traffic towards their clients’ websites through the use of social media and blog posts.

This isn’t all that Zelst do though, and during the week I also completed some technical tasks. I inputted products into a Google spreadsheet for Rug Traders and came up with meta titles for Beaucare and uploaded these. Surprisingly, I had the most fun doing metadata, but perhaps not if I had to write and input 500-plus meta titles! Through these tasks, I came to an understanding that Zelst’s work was as much the technical bits behind the scenes of the website as it was content for the website through social media and blogs.

This insight into Zelst really gave me an understanding of how digital marketing can be used, alongside providing me with invaluable skills and experience in a real-life workplace!

After spending a week in the office, you really notice the personality of a business. I honestly don’t think I could have had a more friendly and enthusiastic team around me, who I found out love cookies and obsess over Love Island – and obviously know it’s coming home! I’ve truly been given a gem of a work experience!

Thank you Zelst!