From the newsroom to sales - Volt Academy matters for every employee.
Image: Volt Academy
Volt Academy is Volt Africa's new company-wide learning and skills hub designed to support every employee, from new starters finding their footing to experienced staff looking to refresh their knowledge or expand their expertise.
Built around short modular courses, practical assessments and real-world workplace tasks, the platform aims to close recurring training gaps while encouraging continuous professional development across editorial, commercial, product and support teams.
Staff can self-enrol in refresher modules, follow curated learning paths, and earn competency badges and certificates as they complete courses.
New hires will benefit from structured onboarding tracks that combine microlearning with assessed practical tasks to fast-track workplace readiness.
In addition, employees will have access to valuable resources, including style guides, platform tutorials and practical how-to content.
Whether you want to sharpen your journalism skills, strengthen your understanding of digital media, improve campaign management expertise, or learn how to use emerging AI tools effectively, Volt Academy offers accessible, practical training designed to help employees grow their careers and stay competitive in a rapidly evolving media environment.
Level up your career with Volt Academy
Image: Volt Academy
Writing and content creation
Master the fundamentals of digital journalism, from story structure and active writing to SEO, press releases, fact-checking and AI tools.
Pitch perfect
Learn how to craft compelling story pitches for editors.
Headline writing and SEO
Write headlines that work for both human readers and search engines. Master the art of SEO-optimised headlines.
Good for Google
Optimise your journalism for Google with topic authority, linking strategy, meta descriptions and mobile-first writing.
Multimedia content creation
Everything you need for broadcast and multimedia journalism; radio writing, podcasting, interviews, field reporting, on-air delivery and PTC scriptwriting.
Social Media and distribution
Master social media for journalism - repurpose content across platforms, understand algorithms, track analytics and write engaging captions.
Basic design
Design fundamentals for journalists - tone, ethical imagery, mobile-first layouts, branding principles, creating for different formats, and accessibility.
Gemini for newsrooms
This practical training equips journalists, editors and content teams with the skills to effectively use Gemini AI in their daily workflows, from headlines and summaries to research, fact-checking and ethical AI use.
NotebookLM Training
How to use Google
Google Pinpoint training
Master Google Pinpoint for investigative journalism - search thousands of documents, audio files and images at scale. Pinpoint uses machine learning to automatically identify and label people, organisations and locations across large document collections.
Journalism 101:
Essential SkillsA comprehensive refresher on the core principles and practices of quality journalism.
Introduction to Volt Africa
Learn about Volt Africa, our digital media brand, its audiences, offerings, and how it fits into the broader Independent Media ecosystem. Essential for all client-facing and commercial teams.
Module 1: The digital landscape
Understand the evolving digital media landscape in South Africa and globally, how audiences consume digital content, where advertising spend is shifting, and what it means for Independent Media’s commercial strategy.
Module 2: Social Media landscape
A deep dive into the social media landscape as it relates to Independent Media’s commercial offerings. Covers key platforms, audience behaviour, content formats, and how to position social media as part of a client’s media mix.
Module 4: Our ecosystem - digital
Explore the full suite of Independent Media’s digital platforms and products. Learn how to package digital offerings for clients, understand audience data, and build compelling digital proposals that drive results.
Module 5: Our ecosystem - paid media
Understand Independent Media’s paid media offerings, including display advertising, native content, sponsored features and programmatic solutions. Learn how to match client objectives with the right paid media products.
Module 6: Our ecosystem - opportunities
Explore the full range of commercial opportunities within the Independent Media ecosystem. Identify the right opportunities for each client, build integrated proposals, and close deals with confidence.
Back end: Workflow
Understand the internal workflow processes at Independent Media - from campaign booking and trafficking to delivery and reporting. Essential knowledge for all sales and operations team members to ensure seamless campaign execution.
Back end: Strategy
Learn how to think and operate strategically as part of the Independent Media commercial team. Covers understanding client business objectives, building strategic media proposals, and positioning Independent Media’s offerings as a strategic partner, not just a vendor.
Trello for campaign management
Learn how to use Trello to manage campaigns efficiently across departments at Volt Africa. Covers card creation, naming conventions, mirroring, tagging, reporting and archiving.
Programmatic advertising
Understand the programmatic advertising ecosystem; DSPs, SSPs, DMPs, RTB, and the different types of programmatic buying. Essential knowledge for all digital sales teams.
Paid Media - Meta
Master Meta paid media, from image text limits and caption best practices to campaign structure, the Learning Phase, Meta Pixel, Lookalike Audiences and Creative Fatigue. Essential for anyone managing or selling Meta advertising.
Back end: Data & BI
Understand the Lighthouse data platform, how to access reports, when to log support tickets, and how data requests are handled at Volt Africa. Essential for all sales and operations teams.
For more information on how to enrol, see below::