I’m sure like many of you, the question I get asked most often is what I do for a living. And when I’m met by a blank stare (and sometimes even cynicism) after saying that, “I’m a social strategist,” I try to dive deeper. But, as the field evolves each day, it’s not always easy to explain. The elevator speech requires quite a bit of work yet, but maybe you can help answer that question that I’m asked multiple times each day.
“What is it exactly that you do?”
I began in traditional public relations, where I still spend a great deal of my time. Pitching traditional media outlets, holding press events, consumer events, and building integrated branded strategy (where from day one-ish in my career, it was always my charge to weave it into an online component). Again, still very much what I do today, but as social media has erupted I have found myself allocating more of my time to researching new technologies (whether they’re great for communication to consumers, added value, or change makers that I need to keep an eye on), formulating relationships with potential community managers/brand ambassadors/evangelists, and finding unique ways to build social strategy into a client’s long term goals (social marketing should be long term strategy and not just tactical). And while I can certainly explain the very abridged version (see above) in 20 seconds, it (1) still generates blank stares and (2) doesn’t do the industry (or my clients) justice.
The challenge in explaining what you do for a living is that you want to provide a clear understanding of how to (and please forgive me with the analogy, I’m tremendously horrible at them) milk a cow without giving away your dairy farm. It’s hard to do, because you want to boast your accomplishments, but still be humble/top secretive about upcoming plans – I suppose that’s like any industry, well, maybe the medical field(my roommate has explained to me her work in AIDS research over and over and I still don’t it would be a great idea for me to jump in and help).
Communications, whether it’s traditional or non-traditional, will vary drastically based on the type of clients or corporation you’re working for. There’s a huge difference between how I’d build strategy and/or explain my non-profit efforts (even corporate social responsibility initiatives), as I would for profit or government accounts. One formula does not equal “the” social marketing solution. It just doesn’t translate that way. Clients have different needs, and for it I provide vastly different solutions, which means drastically different explanations for what it is exactly you do.
Example 1: Jessica at work. How do I explain this??
But each of your clients/companies probably has a common denomination — ROI. It’s just how you explain the channels to get you to that end goal that is difficult to explain. Again, strategy varies, so enviably explanation will fluctuate. But since I work in communications, I have to figure this out.
What is my 20 second elevator pitch for what I do? What is yours? What is important to call out or take away? How do you “sell” what you do?