What can you do with a BA in Film Studies (or a minor in Philosophy for the matter)? Graduating into an otherwise uncertain job market can be scary; many of my classmates still weren’t sure how they could use their well-developed new media skills, much less where they might be employed. For me the answer seemed obvious: I went right back into school to study strategic communication.
Yet this time last year I graduated once again, with an internship lined up but without a clear direction for my own career. I could only dream of working as a social media pro, but my inexperience and overeducation seemed like insurmountable hurdles to post-graduate employment. Only recently was I finally able to find employment with a like-minded group of professionals who shared my passion for creating innovative websites and reinvigorating established brands through strategic online marketing.
Recently I heard from an old friend who wanted to break into online marketing and new media as well. Although I knew first hand of their knowledgeable understanding of online communication and social networks, their challenge was to demonstrate that knowledge to an potential employer. It’s the same reason why I went back into school to study communication, but in this business environment experience is valued more than education.
While I can’t speak for everyone, here’s what I think might help from my own experience:
- Create a resume website: ideally using your own name (like me), or else build your personal brand around a site you can make.
- Connect it with your social media profiles. Secure your name across platforms (even if your not sure how to use them yet).
Continue reading How to become a social media marketing professional (or at least how I got a job) →
If you’ve been wondering what’s been keeping me from updating the blog lately, there need no be any mystery: this is the home stretch of final projects for school. Not the least of which is my masters degree Capstone Thesis paper.
Any one of these projects could warrant a blog post of it’s own, and I will be glad to share more about them after each is completed. In a meantime, here’s a little insight into what a Graduate student in communications can accomplish.
- Practicum: My team has been building a long-term strategic communications plan for Living Classrooms, a non-profit that serves communities in the DC-metro area with hands-on environmental education and workforce development; they call it “Learning By Doing”. This group does amazing work with young people who live in underprivileged areas, but one of the drawbacks of their success is having so many diverse programs it is difficult for newsmedia to make a clear focused story about what it is they do exactly.
One solution I have contributed, which fits the group’s communication strategy, is by making a Blog and Twitter for them to get the word out. I’ll cue you in on how we plan to help a non-profit grow as donors face a recession soon.
- Management: We’ve been given a mock assignment in this class, responding to an RFP from the American Red Cross. Our group has been designing a complete response, including plans for a multi-city festival and a localization model for more than 700 chapters of the Red Cross. We’ll be competing with another group for the contract in an upcoming presentation, which I’ll try to share here.
- Social Marketing: Diabetes is not “Your Grandparent’s disease” any longer; it increasingly impacts younger people. I’ve conducted an environmental scan of the issue, and conducted original primary research through in-depth interviews with students. From there we’ve designed a comprehensive social marketing campaign, that doesn’t just change attitudes but people’s behaviors as well. I’ve already built a mock-up of the online network presence, which is key to our strategy.
- Seminar/Capstone: My thesis involves original research of a scholarly nature, but with real-world application to the problem of energy conservation. Although I am exploring an academic subject, exploring through case study and interviews how individuals are motivated to change their behaviors, I am writing it so that anyone can understand the issue. Hopefully my research will help me build the soapbox I need to come out of my degree with specialization in opinion leaders, agenda setting, and marketing as they apply to the salient public issues that brought me into PR.
I’ll be sure to tell you a little more about what I’ve learned… just as soon as I finish working through them of course. Stay tuned.
Content Marketing, Communications, and Social Media Strategy