Staff blog: Nicola

Hi everyone! I’m Nicola, the Digital Media Mentor here at SOLA ARTS. My role involves managing SOLA’s social media, helping with fundraising, making short films and delivering training and workshops in online media. Here’s what I’ve been up to lately…

I was a little nervous when I first started as Digital Media Mentor back in July because I didn’t have much experience in this type of responsibility and skill. I was used to being the student and not the teacher! But I realised that this new role could help me develop my own digital skills as well as build my confidence.

My first ‘student’ was Alix who first joined SOLA back in July. She has been assisting me with our social media, mainly by researching other people and organisations to follow. I have also taught her about sites such as Buffer and MailChimp.   

Since August, I have been mentoring one of SOLA’s regular participants, Debbie. She is volunteering one day a week to help out with our social media. So far I’ve helped her set up her own Twitter profile and taught her about the newsfeed, retweeting and hashtags. Debbie picks things up very quickly! Debbie also writes poetry and is now using her creative writing skills to write posts for SOLA’s profile, which have generated lots of likes and comments. A star pupil!

In November, I will be running a workshop alongside Karen - one of SOLA’s long term team members. This involves social media, online shops, useful connections, website building, etc. I’m looking forward to this and have started the preparations.

>>> If you’d like to know more or would be interested in taking part let me know at nicola@solaarts.org.