Digital Mums

[mrsvilliers]

Hi everyone, just wondered if anyone has done the Digital Mums course and what their hourly rate when they have got work through them? I'm currently doing freelance social media work through agencies but I find the hourly rate very low. Wondering if it would pick up with a job through Digital Mums.
Thanks

I haven't had experience, but saw this Storify of a Digital Mum Tweetchat which has a few people saying they have found worked. storify.com/DigitalMumsHQ/dmtobe-tweet-chat-july-2015

Can you not market yourself directly? You are getting 100% of the profits then. If you have agency experience you should be appealing to prospective clients?

I've been looking into Digital Mums too but worry that I wouldn't get enough work once qualified. That web chat was helpful but not very transparent on how much income the grads are bringing in, plus most of them seem to have partners (I'm a single parent).

Hi both, thanks very much for replying. MrsMargoLeadbetter I think you are right and that marketing myself is the best option, the problem is I am not 100% ready to do that just yet (still looking after a little one full time) so was wondering if the cost of Digital Mums would be worth it in terms of post qualification clients.

Softwarm I ended up emailing them and for me the cost of the course £1250 is not worth the post qualification hourly rate (they estimate £10-15 per hour). I also spoke to the Head of Social Media at a big advertising agency who didn't seem to think courses were worth it as the field is always changing and all the info is online. Hope that has helped you?

Thanks both for replying.

I did the Digital Mums Programme back in January and actually now work for Digital Mums helping to find graduates work as social media freelancers (my background's in recruitment).

Starting rates are indeed around £12-15 for inexperienced social media managers. So if you worked 12 hours a week, you’d pay back the Programme in roughly 2-3 months.

However, there’s obviously an opportunity cost in joining as it takes six months to qualify, which is six months where you'd potentially not be earning. Obviously if you don't have any previous experience then it makes sense to spend time retraining, but if you already have it then it might not be worth doing. If you’re already a fully-fledged social media manager then it's worth checking out Cloud Peeps, an online marketplace for community managers, or YunoJuno, which is UK-based. These can be an especially good choice if you can combine your social media marketing with other skills like content writing, SEO etc..

And definitely don’t agree with your friend at the advertising agency :) . All the info is online but not structured in any useful, meaningful way. And it's true that social media is always changing, as are all digital skills, but that means training is more important than ever to keep our workforce up to date to ensure we don't get left behind by it. You just need robust training that changes with it.

Hi pottymouther thanks so much for replying, I am definitely going to check out those two websites.

Just out of interest, are the rates that the graduate get what the business pay or does digital mums take a cut (I understand if they do.) I am trying to decide if I want to go down this route, the current agency I work for charges the client PS30 so I know there is a decent hourly rate to be got, but not if I am going to be undercut by others so drastically.
Thanks for your time!

PS30 obviously pounds 30!

Trainings important , in the sense of keeping up to date as the trends and platforms are changing constantly. However, there are many other skills to bring to the table to be successful social media manager or strategise, general PR & writing influence and skills are a must, and can't, imho be taught.

I completely agree wrt other skills escape, I spent 7 years heading up the internal comms for a large and multi faceted organisation so feel I have a lot to offer. I don't want to undersell myself which is why I am trying to get a heads up on hourly rates before I start doing anything concrete in terms of setting up by myself. 12GBP per hour is, imo, a very low rate to pay for the work that needs to be done which is why I'm interested if Digital Mums takes a cut.

I get a lot of my work through People Per Hour. You can set your own rate, create "Hourlies" (fixed price packages) and promote yourself.

If you keep at it, it doesn't take long to start pulling in work.

All the better if you can add another skill to it - copywriting, Wordpress, Squarespace etc.

I definitely would not be doing a course that cost any money. I just created a profile on PPH with some nice images (try Unsplash) and started bidding for jobs.

Thanks icanteven, I looked at PPH about 18 months ago but was put off by their rates and having to bid for work (wasn't in a position to back then timewise) but I had a quick look and it definitely seems worth doing.

Hey sorry for the delay in my response! To answer your question mrsvilliers we take a flat finder's fee of £300 rather than a cut of the hourly or monthly rate. So everything a business pays goes straight to the graduate other than that.

If you already have extensive experience and other services to (i.e. PR, writing, design) then you can 100% charge higher rates for your services from the get-go. People Per Hour is also a good choice to picking up freelancing work. You'll probably have to start off at a lower rate to begin with while you're proving yourself but once you get a good rating and a few great recommendations, you can pick up steam quite quickly

mrsvilliers look at my old post (under another user name) re using PPH. The advice stands. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/freelancers/1326332-peopleperhour-com-anyone-use-this-Help-me-with-my-first-bid-pls

I have found lots of good freelancers on there that I pay a "normal" rate. As a freelancer myself I know what it is like, so I am not interested in the cheapest bid but the person that can do the best job.

MrsMargoLeadbetter That's great advice about PPH, and yes - it definitely still stands.

Thank you so much for your help everybody! Setting up on PPH first seems the most sensible way to go, given all the info on how to set up is there (thanks MrsMargo).

Bumping this for some more current advice!

Also, Digital Mums vs. Google Squared? I do realise they are not quite the same, though.

I am already an experienced marketer, but not so much on the strategic, hands on SM/digital aspect as I've always worked with either in-house teams or external agencies.

Stevie - I guess I would ask what you want to achieve? If you want to sell yr self out doing social for ppl then DM will help.

However, if you want to offer a wider marketing offering then I am not sure it will help.

I looked at 'hosting' a DM trainee, so know a little about it.

Heard good things about Google Sq'd.

I am in a similar position to you. I feel I am missing some formal training. I keep looking at and then doing nothing about a Digial Mkting Msc from Leicester that you can do remotely. An IDM Qual or a course from General Assembly....

Not sure if that is much help!

A bit of everything really. I am toying with the idea of giving the freelance thing a go, to offer social media management with the added bonus of my marketing & comms skills gained in business. But also, so many jobs now ask for some level of digital and SM skills that I need to upskill regardless. I am just not sure whether an official qualification will make that much of a difference, if it's worth the time & money investment seeing I'm already CIM qualified.

I want something quite hands on abd not too basic. I have googled and found a couple of local short courses that may suit a bit better (and cheaper!) than Digital Mums and they also cover SEO and optimization. I'm also helping a few self employed friends with their SM presence to build a portfolio.

Clear as mud!

Hi Stevie77. Full transparency - I work at Digital Mums.

Google We Are Squared is a great course if you’re looking for a broad overview of the digital marketing landscape. The focus is on giving you a high-level understanding of all the things involved in developing a digital strategy. There’s a bit of practical project work, which you do in groups and is centred around pitching to a client, but the focus is on acquiring a general overview rather than a practical implementation of digital marketing.

Digital Mums is much more narrow - the focus is centred around social media marketing rather than the wider digital landscape - and much more hands-on. We have two programmes, with one being specifically aimed at professional marketeers where they execute a live campaign for an actual business. The idea is to give students an end-to-end understanding of what it takes to implement a social media campaign in the real world, so that by the time they finish they have six months of live experience. This gives them the confidence and skills to go on and find paid work involving it straight after (whether as a social media manager, consulting, etc.). Hope that's helpful, if you've any more questions feel free to PM me, very best of luck!

Hi there, I was wondering if your hourly rate goes up if your more experienced, and if so to what? Also, do you know how they recruit people on to the course? Is there a competitive process? Thanks xx

I have just moved out of working for an agency and registered my business to go freelance. I have also been thinking of the Digital Mums course but have started forming my own training using facebook for business and Google's Digital Garage sessions. Mostly nothing new and just stuff that i alreay knew but always good to work through it all again and freshen up.

I have not had much luck on the freelancing sites as I think I am aiming my price too high, I generally charge £10-15 per hour as a basic figure?

Perhaps we should set up a facebook group to bounce ideas around? I think one of the most difficult things about being a freelancer is trying to keep on top of all the developments and changes in algorithms - that is where something like Digital Mums works really well as the graduates form a support group for each other to bounce ideas off!
x

Definitely think the social media landscape is a tough one to keep on top of. Especially as now there is so much automation out there which does the job very cheaply eg. automating blog posts into Tweets, growing followers, reaching out to influencers etc.

As benchmarks I've had agencies quote £50 per month for social media work, though presumably thats really basic stuff.

And others have quoted £3k per month for video and Facebook ads..

There are already a few relevant Facebook groups out there, but none that are geared towards parents who might have other things to do as well as spending 15 hours per day behind a screen ;))

So Facebook group sounds like a great idea FKellett007.

If you are thinking of doing the Digital Mums course please look into all available options before parting with your money. Their SM gives the impression of a hands on course but the guidance, feedback, advice and help is little to none. The course materials are poorly put together and the organisation is a shambles. Would hate for anyone else to misguidedly throw away their savings as I have done when there are lots of other options out there. Don't believe the hype!!

Have you done their course ss134?
Did you complete it, have you been able to start up a career in digital marketing? I have another thread about this at the moment, as I was considering signing up.
Yours is the first negative review I've heard.

Yes, finished it a while ago.

It's important to realise that it's NOT a digital marketing course. It's about how to run social media accounts. The actual format of the course is live learning which works very well but you need to run a social campaign which is fine if you're in a big city but much more challenging (and you'll get less out of it) if you're rurally based or somewhere people aren't actively on all platforms.

The reason I wrote this post is because the lack of honest reviews about Digital Mums out there. When I started all I could find was glowing reviews but since have been contacted by lots of people who completed before me saying they had the same problems. There are lots of frustrated and unhappy students out there! Also I'm aware that people who are just finishing are still experiencing the same.

Also depending on where you're based, many areas are at DM saturation point so people are finding it hard to find work!

Anyway, just my two pence. Just wanted to encourage people to look into all options before just buying into their great marketing.

Good luck with it all ☺️