Friends, this isn’t a world I want to live in. I am not now, nor have I ever been a numbers gal. I also don’t enjoy games of strategy.
What I’m saying is digital analysis, and digital strategy are Right Out.
Where can I fit into this world and is there a place for me?
I think there is, and I think it has more to do with content.
Let me back up…I hit a low point today in the middle of my “keyword search.” Do you understand how many keyword search engines there are out there? I used six today. I have six new passwords and six new usernames, only to discover each one would only give me a small amount of data to complete my assignment. My assignment seemed very simple, my friends…research keywords to use for our client and give them a rating based on search volume, SEO difficulty, CPC, and potential. I didn’t think it would take me long at all. But each program would give me one or two of items off that list, and Google wouldn’t even rank some of the words that other sites did. It was so exhausting. I only have a few cells of my Excel sheet filled in after hours of research.
I pulled up my boot straps and moved on to the next assignment to see if I could at least get that one done. It was building a Google ad based on keywords.
I won’t cover in this post why I am now terrified of Google Ads but I will say it’s based on my experience in this same class on Facebook Ads. I will also say that I have found myself, no exaggeration, curled up on the floor in fetal position during my Facebook Ads weeks, (of which we spent three) because I could not get the pixel to work.
If you have been reading with me since day one you will recall I mentioned online school has no teachers to raise our hands to, no one to come help when we’re stuck. We have only other students in the class, who so far seem as clueless as me, this is 100 level after all, YouTube, which is really hard to comb through for specific questions, believe me I have TRIED, and email to talk to our professors, but by the time they get back to us, the assignment is due.
They all have real jobs. And they refer to their other jobs as Real Jobs because being an online professor is not a lot of work. I picture them sitting at their desk in their free time grading away willy-nilly but they do not have to create the content of the class. They do not have to lecture. They simply say here is what you will be doing this week.
Oi, I digress. Basically ad engines also terrify me and there is no one to help when I hit a bump.
You know what doesn’t terrify me?
Blogging, mockups, A/V Scripts, Writing. I love to write. Hence this blog and your exposure to my daily mental strain.
I had one moment today when I started to put together a “quick data cycle” for my analysis class in which I had to review Pivot Tables and found a nice bloke to explain them to me via YouTube in a three part series and did I want to add the add-on he created called Pivot Pal? Again, a “quick data cycle” with insights, summaries and recommendations took me five hours.
I realize five hours is more than a moment but what I was trying to say is that after keyword searches and Google Ads and data cycles I wondered, “what the hell am I doing? This isn’t me, I’m the one with her head buried in books and join NaNoWriMo every year only to fail but I have a million stories I want to write and I think I can mess around with Strategy and Analysis of any type of numbers?
No.
And I found myself crying yet again today. Not to the extreme of the Facebook Ads incident of 2022, but enough for my dog to lick those salty rivulets off of my face.
So what do I do?
I had a moment where I considered quitting. It was such a short moment. Fleeting, really. I can’t quit when it gets hard. I am middle-aged you see, and we have perspective. We also have kids. Most of them grownish enough to know that Mom has started school for the first time in 20 years and she quit when it got hard.
Do you see?
Do you understand?
Plus I am more than halfway. I will crawl my way to this finish line. I will pass these three wretched classes and the one that I actually enjoy. I’ll pass that one too. Then I will regroup and move on to next semester and hope the cards fall in more varied areas besides the digital marketing world.
Amen.