The Guardian’s Audience Editor gives guest lecture at the University of Westminster

During the lecture Zahra spoke to students about how a fast-paced news organisation like The Guardian functions and highlighted the key aspects of engaging an audience through a brand. She explained that one vital component is knowing your audience, as through this an organisation can tailor their content to who they would like to be viewing it. When the audience is clear, the next step is understanding their wants and needs when it comes to content, to help ensure the media produced is engaging those they want to engage with.

She went on to explain that to do this data is key, as it provides a company with information on what kind of content is working. Through this analysis they can focus time and resources on the areas that have the most success with their target audience.

The lecture gave students the chance to be part of employability-led learning and gave them purposeful engagement with business and industry. The talk left them with a greater understanding of how to start a career in the vast world of Marketing and Media and gave them ideas on how to make that happen.

Second-year Marketing Communications BA Honours student Zeynep Akbulut said: “If I can speak on behalf of the students what I really enjoyed was her transparency about what is waiting for us in the future as a Social Media Marketer. The ideas that were presented were extremely insightful; they offered a practical viewpoint that greatly enhanced our comprehension of the issues and trends facing the industry today. Speaking with such accomplished individuals, in this case Zahra, demonstrates Westminster Business School's dedication to provide an innovative curriculum that equips students like myself for the constantly evolving field of Social Media Marketing.”

After her lecture Zahra Hasan commented: “It was great to meet such enthusiastic future members of our industry, and to be able to impart my learnings!”

Lecturer Maria Bortnovskaya, module leader of the Social Media Marketing module, added: “Our Social Media Marketing module is highly practical and there are multiple elements that contribute into that. By inviting industry experts, we provide students with first hand perspectives from experienced practitioners. It is also an efficient way to demonstrate the real-life relevance of the module content to students.”

Find out more about Marketing and Media and Communication courses at the University of Westminster.