4 Digital Strategy Career-Growth Hacks
This shit ain’t hard, yo.
I am frequently asked advice for how to get jobs doing digital & social strategy. Why anyone asks me for help is a mystery: I’m still a relative newbie, having only worked in the field since 2007.
Nevertheless, with the proliferation of jobs and constant clamour for talented ‘Maths Men’ (and women), I have always had a gut feeling that like the supply side of labour into our industry isn’t being managed properly.
It didn’t take numerous conversations with fellow practitioners for me to realise that existing advice for people who want to get into our field totally sucks.
Here is my humble attempt to remedy this. Practical, though not easy, steps that can guide you budding social media planners and digital strategists out there into #epicwins.
1. Build
If you haven’t got a portfolio of paid work for clients, build yo’ own shit. Learn how to code up websites. Start taking Photoshop seriously and design some cool posters for Tumblr. Come up with concepts for cool Facebook Games, and then publish the plans here on Medium.
Someone who does this very well is my ex-colleague and friend Rhys Hillman. Sure, Rhys is already talented Digital Strategist at an ad agency in Melbourne who does great client work. However, he is also very creative and driven with his own initiatives.
He created a hilarious website called Please Help Me Ja Rule, where people can choose their mood and be rewarded with an appropriate Ja Rule track. Not only is the site funny: future bosses and recruiters notice when someone’s fun side project gets shared more than 500 times in Facebook and involves art + copy + code.
It isn’t rocket science to realise the people who hire digital strategists need evidence to prove you rock. If you haven’t got any work experience, build digital experiences about things you love. I promise it will help you get you strategy jobs.
2. Read, then Engage
Read as much as you can online about digital strategy, then digest it and talk about it. Find authors and thinkers you like, follow them on Twitter/Facebook. Ask them questions & engage with their own tweets.
You’d be surprised how well-known people or experts often reply to their fans. Digital marketing genius Brian Solis engages heaps with people who engage with him.
If you don’t know where to start with who to follow, do a bit of searching for fellow strategists who you like. You could start here.
Don’t stress if you find your hero is a douchebag, either. You can unfollow them with a single click!
3. Get your LinkedIn sorted
Fill out your details. Don’t worry if you didn’t go to an Ivy League university: people will appreciate honesty. In the same measure, don’t boast if you are already a high achiever: LinkedIn rewards modesty.
Better still, put the stuff you build in 1. into your showcase of work. Add people who influence you with a kind introductory description explaining you’re not a stalker.
4. Go beyond Digital
No, I don’t just mean watch lots of indie movies and use analogue cameras. A good strategist knows strategy in all its forms: from warfare to economics.
A good place to start is Sun Tzu’s Art of War, which you can read here. It might be a cliche, but the rules of strategy you learn in it are valuable and will stop you from becoming arrogant when you start getting cocky.
Beyond Sun Tzu, I would strongly encourage you to read across strategy in other subjects, not just business and marketing. It will help you become a better strategist when you’re able to be more abstract in your understanding of how to meet objectives & overcome challenges using limited sets of resources.
