Hi
I’m Jackson. Here’s a rundown on my background and journey into the online world.
THE WRITER
For most of my life my passion has been sports, and particularly Australian football.
I started covering the game as a 13-year-old, writing for the local competition programme and working as a voluntary reporter for a couple of newspapers in Darwin, Northern Territory.
It was a natural fit for me. I've always been somewhat of a writer - whether it be constructing long, elaborate narratives as a kid in third grade, keeping a daily diary of my first term of middle school or compiling the Top End Australian Football Association competition's history in a 150-page file as a 15-year-old.
I've also been a football-nut my whole life, chasing a ball around as soon as I could walk and taking an interest in all facets of the game. I was one of those kids who would sleep with his football.
Over the coming years, countless hours were spent researching and writing articles. They were published in local newspapers, but I soon discovered that people weren’t reading them. People just weren’t buying the paper as much these days.
Where did they go?
NT FOOTBALL WITH JACKSON CLARK
The online world is certainly not new to me. I’ve been creating websites and hosting online forums since I was eleven years old.
So, in 2012, I started publishing my articles on a Facebook page called NT Football with Jackson Clark (formerly known as NT Football Scores & News).
It now has well over 20-thousand likes – a modest number compared to other pages on Facebook, but very solid given the niche category and population of Darwin.
I have also explored other platforms and have generated strategies to grow my Instagram account (@jacksonclarkmedia) to over 15k followers and my LinkedIn profile to roughly 28 000 connections.
My presence on social media has given me some amazing opportunities to cover football on television, radio and print. I hosted and produced my own radio show Balls 'n' All on Sunday mornings, which was a hit in the ratings survey.
I’ve had opportunities to feature on SEN, Channel Nine, Channel Seven and the ABC, just to name a few.
It allowed me to create the Kicking the Stigma project to raise awareness around mental health at football clubs, in which I became the first person to play one game of football in each state or territory in consecutive weeks.
I owed it all to the presence I built on social media.
THE PASSION FOR ONLINE MARKETING
But it could not stop there.
Like a lot of people, I hyper-focus on whatever I’m passionate about at the time to the point it almost becomes an obsession. You might be able to relate.
It started as a little kid with WWE (1999-2001's Attitude Era was the best period for professional wrestling!) and seeped into my other passions, like footy, and now online marketing.
Why online marketing? First I became fascinated with different hacks, strategies and tactics on how to grow my own presence online. Then it progressed to helping other people with their own business goals. I receive great satisfaction when my strategies have resulted in real tangible results.
Over the past four years I have read hundreds of books, watched hours of video tutorials and completed over a dozen courses on social media marketing and branding, paid advertising strategies, copywriting and practically anything I can get my hands on regarding online marketing.
I’ve fallen asleep to marketing podcasts and even read books claimed as ‘outdated’ just to get a better grasp of how the psychology towards social media has progressed to where we are today.
But nothing beats hands-on experience and I have spent most of my life on these social media platforms. I have learnt through carefully analysing performance data and exhausting trial-and-error processes.
It has become fun, too. I enjoy the challenge of strategising with businesses and solving problems by using online marketing solutions.
Jackson Clark Media is a digital consultancy offering a wide range of services in marketing and communications that help to grow brands online.
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