Talk Session With Oktafia Putri : Starting Social Media Career from Zero

“Technology makes things faster and more cost-effective, but it’s not perfect. It requires you to be as flexible as you can be.” — John Phillips.

Oktafia Putri, after had a career as an operation manager in a technology company, she took one step further to reach her dream job. Her interest in digital marketing then led him to encounter many obstacles that needed to be solved to become proficient in the field of marketing, particularly in social media.

Her ambition to improve the marketing system at the previous company became the first step into a greater role. Her persistence in studying digital marketing, supportive mentors, and relatable networks support Oktafia’s success as a social media manager at Progate Indonesia, without a marketing background.

How was your career journey to become a social media manager?

Oktafia : “I began teaching English in high school and participated in English debate training, which prepared me for a degree in international relations when I started college. After graduating from college, I landed my first job as an operations manager at a technology company and I worked on many projects for the Indonesian government. After that, I moved to another company and managed the marketing field. I then moved to Progate Indonesia specifically to manage social media or digital marketing.”

How was your experience when you were a fresh graduate in an IT-based company?

Oktafia : “From the experiences that my friends and I got, being ambitious is important for us as fresh graduates so that we won’t get lost once we already start working in a company. When working in a company, we’ll be treated as fresh graduates regardless of our background, which may be very experienced and have a good profile. Again, I like working in the startup field because apart from being dynamic, we can learn a lot of things deeper that we didn’t master in college. We are also trained to interact with other people and this is quite difficult because when we work for the company, we must be prepared and involve more money. Sometimes, I feel paid-less, but the days after becoming a fresh graduate are the days when we get another chance to study. Stability is quite difficult to obtain at the fresh graduate level because of the many challenges and adaptation to new things.”

What attracted you to digital marketing?

Oktafia : “I saw several cases at my previous job. I feel some parts aren’t good in the marketing field, there are some parts that can be improved but since I’m not part of marketing so I can’t make a significant contribution. I’ve followed many career paths of one of my mentors whose background is in the field of marketing. I saw a lot of his works and saw him as a cool person. From here, my interest in marketing began to grow and I started to learn digital marketing while I worked at my previous company. I learned a lot of things related to marketing companies.”

What does a social media manager do?

Oktafia : “We usually manage the content to be published, promote the company’s brand, and plan the content for the company. In brief, social media managers are responsible for communicating and personalizing company products to the public. Due to the restrictions because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we must be able to effectively use all social media platforms.”

What strategies have been taken to develop Progate Indonesia?

Oktafia : “A thing that must be done is to increase brand awareness. As I said previously, I attempt to personalize the company to the public. In my opinion, a good company is a company that is remembered by many people, one of which is through social media platforms. So, one of the strategies is to make something easy for our consumers to remember.”

What advice can you give regarding brand awareness?

Oktafia : “Based on my experience, first, we must position ourselves as our consumers to understand what they see when they see us. From there, we can move on to the next step by personalizing our company to the public. We must be adaptive in various conditions. It’s quite useless if we create a lot of content, but the content is contradictory or unaccepted by the public.”

Are you looking for other tips from Oktafia? Hear the full story in What’s Up Digi-Kode! Podcast. Brought to you by Girls Kode.

Written by Rania Salsabila