Shannon McGovern – Poppulo
Digital Marketing Specialist at Poppulo.
TUS Class of 2020.
What was the highlight of your time studying at TUS?
I enjoyed every second at TUS. Some of the main highlights during my time included being a Student Ambassador and helping promote the college to prospective students, being a Peer Assisted Student Support Leader and looking after first year students undertaking the Digital Marketing course and making sure they were set up for success, and finally, the support from lecturers I had when preparing for assignments and presentations was great. I have made friends for life and thoroughly enjoyed my time at TUS, I would love to relive it again!
What did you learn at TUS that has helped you in your current role?
From my time at TUS, the main learning for me was the Capstone Project I undertook in my final year. This practical, hands-on experience really helped me gain an understanding of what Digital Marketing jobs would look like when I finished college and what areas I was most passionate about.
Working with an external company and having ownership over building and implementing a digital strategy for them was amazing. I got to build professional relationships with colleagues, become really independent, creative, organised and learn a huge amount of new skills which has benefited me greatly in various roles in start-up and scale-up companies I have undertaken since college.
Tell us about your Passion for Digital
I absolutely love all things digital marketing. Every time I visit places like cafes, restaurants or hear business ideas, automatically I am always thinking about their digital presence and how it could look with a creative flair added. My passion for digital continues to grow all the time and here is a small glimpse of my career to date which has massively increased my passion for the industry.
I started off my digital career in 2019 – 2020 by undertaking the Capstone Project during my final year in TUS with a company called Zinkworks. When this project came to an end and I graduated, I was offered an Intern position at the company. At Zinkworks I was mainly working on all things strategy, website, social media marketing, content and recruitment marketing. In 2020 I was offered a Graduate position with CitySwift and worked my way up to an Executive position. I managed the marketing department during my time and got to work with various areas in Marketing which helped me double down and focus on areas I was passionate about for future jobs. Everything from PR agency management, industry event organising, email marketing, organic and paid social media marketing, metric reporting, video campaigns, multi channel lead generation and much more.
During April of 2022 I was offered a Digital Marketing Specialist position at Poppulo where I continue to thrive in my digital career. My past experiences allowed me to specialise in areas I loved most. Since starting at Poppulo my main areas of focus is on Paid Social and carrying out targeted advertising on Linkedln Campaign Manager aswell as other ad platforms. Apart from Paid Social, I work on everything from email marketing to push notification content management to carrying out market research and creating social media content and copy for various campaigns. Paid Social is where my passion lies, and I am grateful for my previous and current roles to have shaped this.
What are your Career Aims for the Future?
I have worked my way up from the bottom since finishing college from starting off with an Intern position in 2020, to a Graduate position, Executive position, and currently in a Specialist position. I hope to continue branching into new roles as I continue growing and learning in my digital career.
I would love to continue progressing in the field of Digital Marketing by constantly staying up to date with industry knowledge and always being willing to learn new trends, systems, and best practices in Digital Marketing. The more I learn, the more I can produce work to a high standard to gain more responsibility.
What is your advice for a Prospective Student?
My advice would be to work hard and give it your all. I worked so hard for 4 years from day 1 of
first year to the last day of final year and it was such a relief to see it all paying off through
results, graduating, and career opportunities. College years go by so fast so enjoy every minute
you can. It’s all about getting the balance right between working hard and socialising and
enjoying college.