The evolving role of a comms planner

For a brief second, crafting a brand message for social was in big demand. Why — The simplest reason is because social channels are constantly evolving. You need a planner that has a finger on the pulse of the communication landscape to guide creative teams from the start to the finish line.

My spidey sense tells me that this excitement is wearing down and the role of a comms. planner in agencies is currently being questioned.

Directly effects the role: For the short amount of time I have formally been a part of the advertising industry it’s clear how much the role of an Advertising agency is changing. A recent study by the Association of National Advertisers found 60 percent of Fortune 500 brands are thinking about replacing agency work with in-house capabilities. Brands have begun to build and fortify their own Social teams internally, as a way of cutting costs and bringing operations closer to the center of control.

Indirectly effects the role: The average amount of time, that users spend each day on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger platforms is Fifty minutes.

A New York Times post says that fifty minutes is the average amount of time, that users spend each day on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger platforms. That roughly means more than one-sixteenth of an average user’s waking time is spent on social channels.

This amount of time spent browsing daily, has created a sense that “ I understand social media” and I am less dependent on comms. planners to lead the way and show how to effectively communicate on these channels.

This transition of brands cutting out agencies, was set into motion a long time ago. However I only really felt the rug being pulled from under me, when I heard that my hours might be cut on a future project. When you love what you do and give a 100% that can be a hard pill to swallow.

“Who we are cannot be separated from where we’re from” — Malcolm Gladwell in the Outliers.

When it comes to creative problem solving and defining an effective communication/social strategy, each of us brings our own life experiences, cultural backgrounds and personal beliefs to the table — this diversifies the approach and is meant to break the mold every time. What I am getting at here is, this stuff is messy [the good kind of messy] and it involves a lot more than connecting Facebook and Twitter icons to the content that should live there. When you believe in designing custom solutions it means not just trying to experiment with the output of the project but also the input that leads to it.

So I want to take a moment to share a personal checklist of why a comms. planner is so important to the team. Aside from the time spent building a Nasty girls (or women) playlist this is what it takes:

1. Immerse: Understand the audience, better than the back of your hand. Probably the most time consuming, but as the one that carries out the research you have the deepest understanding and are closest to the subject matter.
2. Analyze: Follow communication channel updates, while always trying to analyze why? What is the behavioral trend that has influenced this shift in patterns.
3. Watch: Aside from updates that come up within the world of Advertising and the brand is being worked on. Time is dedicated in scouring the web, attending conferences (both in and out of the marketing spectrum) like the PSFK Future of Adverting event, visiting museums and even analyzing people on the subway(this one’s my favorite).
4. Optimize: After months of planning and working with production partners on a project for a multinational tech company, we had to change the overall approach when Facebook updated it’s platform to offer Live streaming from multiple encoders. This not only posed new challenges from a tech stand-point (Facebook’s requirements are very different from YouTube Live) but also from a user behavior study. How do I make my Live video stand out from the clutter of a news feed? and what creative changes should be made to better suit user behavior in this new environment. For this project it meant re-structuring the storyline to sync up with the time when we see a peak in viewers (on average 7 min in for a live video) and re-working the introduction of every stream, so it grabbed attention quick and differentiated from any teaser content the viewer may have seen leading up to that moment.
5. Care: We come in early and stick around till the very end. Ideally it starts with an audit of channels, competitors and research that informs who the target is and how they feel about the brand. Then work closely with creative, production and account teams to insure these learnings are reflected in the work. Once live, track how the work is being received and how it can continue to be optimized.

So if there is one thing to take away from all this — love the work, love the people and want to keep doing more and more of it. So don’t be shy and think of the role the comms. planner could play on the team, the next time you’re building the foundation for a project that is going to break the internet.