The Orchard county is blessed to be replete with many family-run businesses and now one local children’s author has recruited the help of his charismatic and creative daughter to help market his tall tales.
Armagh author of The Jolly Giraffe and full-time taxi driver, Darren Mackey launched his first children’s story book just eight months ago.
And despite having previously told Armagh I that he couldn’t write his own name until roughly age 14, Darren has now written a second book, The Glows and is already contemplating his third.
In the early days of putting pen to paper for his story about jolly Jerry the giraffe and friends, Darren enlisted the help of his wife and daughter, Niamh… who has now taken up a much more dedicated and vital role in the success of her father’s books.
Related: ‘Are you having a giraffe?’: Taxi driver overcomes literacy difficulties to pen children’s book
This new role has taken the young graduate on a helter-skelter adventure of her own… and it’s all developed within the last five days!
Niamh jokes that she is now working on an ad-hoc basis – alongside her full-time job as a Virtual Assistant – as her dad’s marketing manager, publicist, creative director, social media manager and intern!
Niamh (centre) with her mum and dad
And she’s doing it all without any prior experience.
As a Business and Finance graduate, Niamh has a brain for business but admits she’s still very much finding her feet in the world of digital marketing… with a little help from her new friend, ChatGPT.
Describing how it all came about, Niamh told Armagh I: “My dad was just like ‘Help!’ He doesn’t know anything at all about Gen-Z culture!
“He said he needed a TikTok and I said, ‘let me do it’ and it’s just been so fun. I thought I would just have a wee scroll online and try to come up with a few ideas.
“I’m so online already, I already know what’s trending so that’s what I’ve been doing this last couple of days is just following trends.
“I haven’t actually laid out my own content or made a plan of how he can be in the space. It’s just B-roll of photos I had already and just text over and making use of it all.”
Moving forward, Niamh will be entirely self-taught and is using all resources available to her to help ease that process.
Describing ChatGPT as her “best friend”, Niamh added: “It’s currently making me a marketing house. It’s the pillars of your marketing strategy, your umbrella statement saying what you want to put out, what age it’s for, how you’re going to promote it and the reason people want to see it and how to formulate the content.”
Admitting that the artificial intelligence software is making her life “so much easier”, Niamh has even utilised the programme for video editing support and graphic design.
Less than a week in, she says her dad is “buzzing” every day when he comes home, busting to speak with her about views, followers and new, innovative ideas!
The pair are incredibly close and both have confidence and charisma in spades, but Niamh is undoubtedly the more confident in front of the camera. But, she does have plans in the pipeline to get Darren into the spotlight.
Niamh will continue wearing her many hats until such a time as the platforms “take off” but, for now, she’s just enjoying the fun it’s brought to her day and the smiles it’s bringing to her dad’s face!
