Beyond School: My week at Base One

Hi. I'm Nick. I'm 15, a student at Kingston Grammar School and doing a week's work experience at Base One. Throughout my time here I'll be writing a blog to tell you about all my new experiences as I sample the world of work for the first time. One of my new experiences will be writing a blog so I hope you enjoy reading about my unique perspective on the world of B2B marketing.

Monday-June 28th-2010

I arrived at Base One at about 9:30 this morning for my first day of work experience. I was not sure what to expect and how the office would look. I was shown around the office and its various departments and sections by Sarah, the chief account handler at Base One.

Sarah talked me through the various processes that the company goes through and how Base One go from brief to the start date of the campaign. I can already say I understand a considerable amount more than I did this morning about how B2B companies work, although I am told that Base One is not a traditionally run B2B marketing company. We talked about how most decisions the consumer makes are emotional and these are heavily influenced by marketing and advertising that we (the consumer) will see in our normal day.

I was then introduced to the Social Media team. Search consultant Rebecca introduced me to the "Don't Turn Up" campaign which advertises the B2B Awards 2010. The face of the campaign is Harry Basterd, who sounds a bit like Facejacker's "Terry Tibbs" and threatens us not to turn up. "That award's already mine!" he repeats.

I was handed over the controls to the Facebook and Twitter pages controlling the campaign and today I made my first Tweet to the world. I declared that the 25th November (the day of the awards) was my day. I was given control of Harry's "Don't Turn Up" Facebook page and spent the rest of the morning researching the attending companies and posting a message on their walls to get them interested in the work we are doing on Facebook. Eventually, Facebook told me to stop spamming and wanted to verify if I was human!

Another search consultant, Mark, showed me how to perform keyword analysis. This consists of a very large Excel document and a lot of copying and pasting. Eventually, Google came up with a message telling me I was partaking in activities they did not like so I was banned from Google for a while - which has never happened to me before! Next up was link-building, which is where I promote a website by posting it on multiple sites to help create interest in the page, increasing its ranking on Google.

I posted four successful URLs and had another four turned down on the various sites I tried. So I have hopefully had some sort of influence on the ranking of this site.

I have really enjoyed my first day of work experience. I am glad I am sampling the line of work that interests me and so far I'm sure this is the kind of job I would like to get after university. I like the great variety in marketing and I am really enjoying the laid-back office with the comfy seats. I have even been listening to XFM all day on my inherited pink headphones. So I will say goodbye for now and update you tomorrow about my second day at Base One.

Cheers

Nick