How to Give Back as a Digital Marketer

• Join the Google Ads Help Community and answer users questions https://support.google.com/google-ads/community?hl=en
• Create educational videos
• Create educational/informative articles
• Create a podcast related to Digital Marketing
• Host local meetups (via meetup.com)
• Become a mentor (Check out https://www.builtbygirls.com/)
• Speak at local schools
• Join the Paid Search Association
• Participate in #PPCChat conversations (A weekly chat that takes place every Tuesday at 12:00 PM EST.) See: https://officialppcchat.com/ and https://twitter.com/hashtag/ppcchat
• Volunteer for a 501(c)(3)

The Google Ads Help Community offers an opportunity to help those overcome problems that you have likely faced at some point in your career using Google Ads. It is “a place for Google users to ask questions or provide feedback about Google products and services, discuss products and services with other Google users and enthusiasts, provide tips for using Google products and services to the community, get help from other users and Google enthusiasts on all of the above”. Not only does joining the community and answering users’ questions help others, but it also provides a sense of self satisfaction and bragging rights. The more answers you provide, the more opportunity for ultimate bragging rights. The community offers a badging system to indicate members level of participation (as seen below).

•  Silver Product Experts: New members who are developing their product knowledge
•  Gold Product Experts: Trusted members who are knowledgeable and active contributors
•  Platinum Product Experts: Seasoned members who contribute beyond providing help through mentoring, creating content, and more
•  Google Employees: Guides and community managers who work at Google
•  Google Community Specialists: Google partners who lend their expertise to help maintain our communities

Many people are visual learners, we have an opportunity to help these folks too! There are 2+ billion users per month on YouTube. Knowing this statistic, there is no doubt that there is a healthy portion of users that would be interested in learning about paid search.

In order to serve the paid search community, you can write content. This content can range from articles about emerging trends in our industry or step by step instructions on how to do something. You can host these articles on your own website or share them with major publications such as Search Engine Land or Search Engine Journal. I will also gladly publish your article, if desired.

Perhaps look at some of my personal heroes’ work for inspiration: Ginny Marvin, Frederick Vallaeys, Nils Rooijmans, Christi Olson

Hosting a digital marketing related podcast is a fantastic way to give back to the community. When I landed my first agency job I commuted from Delaware to Philadelphia for seven months until I moved. Nearly every two hour ride back and fourth was powered by a marketing related podcast. I can’t even begin to explain how helpful some of them were. Each time you listen to a digital marketing related podcast your likely to learn something new. Not only will you learn something new, but your also likely to be able to more confidently communicate about digital marketing yourself. If you are a marketing professional that can speak fluently, confidently and keep things entertaining you should certainly consider creating a podcast! You’d be surprised how many people may be able to benefit from the knowledge you have to share.

Look to the following for inspiration:

The Paid Search Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/paid-search-podcast-weekly-podcast-about-google-ads/id1097687350)

Google Partners (https://events.withgoogle.com/google-partners-podcasts/#content)

PPC Rockstars (https://webmasterradio.fm/shows/ppc-rockstars)

The Art of Paid Traffic (https://rickmulready.com/aopt-podcast-all/)

Perpetual Traffic (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/perpetual-traffic/id1022441491)

Start a monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly meet up with others who share interest in your paid search passion. Starting a meetup group connects you with passionate people looking to share ideas, learn, and well… get out of the house. You can use this platform however you like whether you want it to be collaborative in nature or pure education sessions where you teach those who are interested in the marketing space.

Speaking at a local high school or college could be something of interest to both students and professors. More and more schools are offering web development, programming and marketing courses. While professors may be teaching students how to create websites, it’s possible that students could use some information about how to drive traffic to their website outside of SEO. It can’t hurt to reach out to local professors who teach these subjects and see if they would be interested in you providing insight into industry or giving a brief glimpse into the world of paid media. Doing this can also immensely improve your public speaking skills.

Although relatively new, the Paid Search Association has made a promise to help others grow and advance in the paid search industry. The association plans to do this by providing all of those who are involved in paid search with services and information aimed at advancing individuals and organizations. You can start contributing today by signing up and creating/responding to posts on the members’ forums.

Learn More

#PPCChat is a popular twitter hashtag, but more importantly is a weekly Twitter chat that typically focuses on Paid Search related topics. Matt Umbro started it in 2011 and Julie Friedman Bacchini (@neptunemoon) is now the host. Don’t be shy, the #PPCChat community is filled so many friendly and brilliant folks!

Donate your time to nonprofits who need digital marketing help https://www.catchafire.org/volunteer/?name_filter=paid%20search&page=1. This is a great way to build your resume while doing good for others.