Memories of Online Marketing

When I graduated 25 years ago from Baruch College in New York City with a marketing management degree, I had no idea where it would take me, I just knew that I loved business and marketing. Not so much sales but I was always fascinated with why people buy things. I love the consumer research aspect, and I just ran with it. When I got out of school, I did so well as an executive assistant that I just kind of tried on different businesses with temp jobs that I had no problem slipping into with all of my admin skills and computer skills, but it wasn’t until years later that I would fall into social media and online marketing. When I was in school, there was really no social media or even iPhones. Boy am I dating myself.

Fast forward to 2007 when I graduate with a masters degree in arts management, after a career in music as a jazz vocalist, with a successful band and marketing and promoting my performances, MS just came into the picture and it was too much for me to keep performing. Losing my balance on stage was just too much for me and I was getting more and more fatigued and frustrated that things were getting so difficult and I just did not know why until I would get the diagnosis.

So even though the career in arts management did not work out for me, I still was really good at social media and online marketing, especially email marketing to promote my performances that I just fell into a role as an online marketing manager pretty easily. My last stent was locally in my own town and I was very successful at it and loved what I did, especially the photography and managing the website.

For my own brand, Vickie Siculiano, I was enjoying building a blog, writing and even started a podcast. I was always learning as much as I could, and took courses and how to be the best I could be at YouTube and engaging in audience by analyzing the backend through the YouTube dashboard, taking a course on podcasting, taking a book on how to write a bestseller in a weekend where I became a best-selling author of a book on smart phone photography for business. It seems like I had it all and I was coming back with a vengeance.

After having a child, I included him in everything I did. Even on my podcasts. I thought that maybe someday he would be on the podcast with me, I did not know how he would come into the mix, but I knew that I loved working with him in my space. I was truly happy.

When things got too difficult for me because my MS had progressed after childbirth and I moved from using just a cane to two forearm crutches and needing a Rollator at home to keep my balance, I just could not return to the workplace to my job.

I decided that I would be a stay at home mom and build things on the backend. It just didn’t seem like it worked out for me to do podcasting or my YouTube channel anymore because my interest just shifted to being a mom and being the best that I could be. I was particularly fascinated with photography And it was a way that I could still keep my photography skills up, so I was planning on creating a course for moms on how to use smart phone photography to capture their child with their phones, and save it forever. But just like my book, based on technology, there is a limited life cycle as technology just changes so quickly.

So I focused on being a mom, shut down my podcast, but always kept my blog there. With a podcast you need to have service space because the digital files are much more than just text. But my blogs still remained.

And that’s where I start this blog a little over seven years later, with the same dashboard that I used back then. I had multiple blogs over the years, including restaurant marketing, digital food photography, my online marketing of course, and now my blog chronically empowered mom.

I am thankful that I created so much Content because it is a treasure trove for ideas on what to post about. I can repurpose a lot of it, including why project management was like jazz improvisation. Jazz improvisation still applies to being mobility challenged because when things don’t go your way in the show has to still keep going on, you have to figure out how to improvise. Or you just have to figure out a way to have the same show but do it your way. There are a lot of ways to think of the content that I’m going to be sharing with you, and I am very thankful that I can look at my past and have my work there for me to dig into. So I highly recommend blogging, and saving your journey to look at. I am on Instagram, so I have a lot of content there too. There’s no use in keeping it all to myself and I am thankful that you were sharing it with me. Long live online marketing! Ha ha