Are you one of those employees that were laid back due to this pandemic?
Feeling anxious and getting tired of staying at home because you are used to be busy at work?
Are you now bored Netflix binging, Tiktok dancing, scrolling back and forth on your newsfeed?
I can relate because just like you, I am also staying at home.
With the uncertain times that have trapped the world and forced people to stay at home for their own safety, almost everyone is resorting to making the best of their lockdown period, either by discovering their hidden talents or by learning new skills which can be beneficial to them in the near future.
DIGITAL SKILLS WORTH LEARNING FOR IN 2020
To help people catch up on new skills, plenty of online training websites are offering courses for free or at a discounted rate. While there is a vast range of skills you can choose from, here are the top three skills you can learn which can prove extremely valuable for your career growth.
DIGITAL MARKETING
This is the most daunting career to get into as it has a number of technical and soft skills required, but it’s all worth it as it is one of the highest paying skills. When I got into the field of content editing, I did not initially worry about reaching out to people to get my work recognized, let alone be appreciated. That’s when I realized I must learn the concepts of what marketing is and how it is done to sell my writings, and which is precisely why I feel, digital marketing is something that every individual – from any field of work – must train themselves on.
There is a whole range of marketing courses available on online training websites, but the one I learned recently – and found exceptionally informative and educative – is the 40-hour “Fundamentals of Digital Marketing” certification course offered by the Google Digital Garage. It teaches all the essential concepts right from the basics to the advanced ideas to be implemented in marketing such as SEO, Google Analytics, and even a step-by-step plan on how to plan your online business strategies. This is a course where I learned so many concepts about marketing which I did not know existed earlier and they have helped me to a great extent in how to attract the right kind of audience to my social media pages.
Apart from the above, there are several other courses on marketing offered by different websites that can be learned during this quarantine. This link on the HubSpot blog lists the various kinds of marketing people can indulge in while staying at home and enhance their skills.
COPYWRITING
With the number of start-ups increasing all over the globe, one skill that is high in demand is copywriting. Partly similar to marketing, copywriting requires a good command over a language, competently written skills, and the ability to conduct extensive research. Almost every small piece of work needs proper advertising and promotion to get sanctioned, and that’s where the role of a copywriter comes in handy.
Almost all of the famous training websites offer courses and certifications on copywriting such as Udemy, Coursera, and SkillShare that you can enroll for at a minimal price and improve your writing and research skills. As an added personal experience, most of the writing and vocabulary knowledge I have gained is through reading. Books, research studies, blogs, testimonials are a few of the things that provide rich content to be read and applied for copywriting work.
Apart from that, watching videos and podcasts also give a lot of knowledge about the concepts of copywriting and different ways to implement it. I have been a voracious reader ever since I remember and that has helped me a great deal with my grammar and vocabulary.
Enchanting Marketing lists a 5-step process of understanding and learning copywriting using a simple approach while CopyBlogger allows you to download a free e-book on how to excel in copywriting.
CODING/PROGRAMMING
Learning a new programming language can never go waste, one can hardly disagree on this. With newer software upgrades, versions, and programming techniques constantly being developed, making the best use of this quarantine by enhancing your programming skills is something you should consider. Languages such as Python, JavaScript, and PHP along with some lightweight databases like MongoDB are in popular demand at the moment and a variety of courses can be taken online to master them.
Hackr lists 10 of the most sought-after programming languages to learn in 2020. Additionally, cloud computing applications are excellent and modern ways to improve your coding, deploying, and testing skills. While some of the most trusted organizations in the world offer certification programs such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services.
Additionally, Skilltransfers offers certification in programming through private or one-on-one courses that allow you to learn and/or improve in the easiest, fastest, and efficient way.
Business has only two functions – Marketing and Innovations.
Milan Kundera, French writer
Would you agree you are your own business? It is your business to improve yourself whether to be better at what you do or to learn new skills that would help you elevate to a brighter future. In business, time is money. So we must know how to use our time wisely. Take this opportunity to learn new skills, to innovate yourself and be more marketable. Time for self-improvement is the best investment you can make.
