By Arnab Dey
Storytellers are special. Being able to craft a tale and hold an audience’s attention has placed storytellers in powerful positions in society since the start of time. In the past, they were the gatekeepers in history.
Today, they’re an essential component of every part of business and society. Flat facts are uninspired. They tell you the how but not why you should care. That’s where storytellers come into play.
If you have a knack for storytelling, then you have so many exciting and innovative career opportunities ahead of you. Work with your strengths, build up skills, and use this guide to advance your career:
Types of Storytellers:
Every creative is a type of storyteller. Writers, actors, artists, and videographers. How they tell their story is unique, and each one carries an important place in society.
1. Visual Storytellers
Visual storytellers create a story that goes beyond words. For filmmakers, it’s taking people on a visual narrative. For artists, it’s capturing a story or a feeling in a single image. These types of storytellers work either in the arts and culture industry and craft their work as artists, or they work in marketing to use their talents to tell a whole story in a few short seconds.
2. Written Storytellers
These types of storytellers are commanders over the written word. They craft long and short copies, either for themselves or for clients. Content online is king, and though visual content does take up a bulk of focus, written copy plays a massively important role in online marketing. Add in articles, white papers, and reports, and you can start to see why a writer plays an essential role in every industry.
3. Multimedia Storytellers
If you can create art and write great copy, or if you have a knack not just for directing a film but writing it, then you’re a multimedia storyteller. This lets you expand into multiple roles or define yourself in a unique niche. It will be difficult to establish yourself as an expert in multiple skills, but with patience and commitment, you can make important strides toward your goals.
Job Roles for Storytellers:
There are many ways that you can take your career. For most creatives, of course, there may even be a juggle. You want to pursue your art on your own terms, but then you also need to pay the bills. This is why many creatives have a side hustle where they try to make their art profitable.
Regardless of your ultimate goal, it’s important to know your options. This way, you can find a niche that truly speaks to you and helps you pursue your art and talents in a way that feels fulfilling.
A. Marketing
One of the most popular ways to use your skills is to transition your career into marketing. Marketing is ubiquitous. There isn’t a single business or brand out there that doesn’t need a talented marketer (or team) on its side. With so much competition, marketing has become the only way to truly stand out.
That’s where you come in. When it comes to marketing, however, you want to be able to do more than create marketing materials. You also want to be able to understand your campaign’s impact and what you need to improve it. You’ll be on the right track if you combine artistry and analysis.
B. Media
Media is another massive industry that is perfect for storytellers, especially filmmakers, editors, writers, and graphics artists. How you turn your art and passion into a career is going to be up to you entirely. This industry is one of the hardest to get into since so much of it is about who you know.
Getting in is the hard part; once you’re in, you’ll need to do two things to further your career. The first is to continually develop your skills so that you not only meet industry standards but are always ready to adapt your skillset for the next generation of technology.
The second is to network. As the industry is all about who you know, you need to not only make great impressions on those you work with. You need to actively hunt down leads and stay in touch with your network.
C. Artistry
All storytellers can use their talents to establish a name for themselves. Becoming an artist can look like anything. You can sell your art. You can work with organizations and even governments to create visual art for the public and so on.
Most full-time artists do end up working either in marketing or in media, at least on a part-time, by-project basis. That’s all fine. Every day of an artist is going to look vastly different from one to the next, so you need to not only establish a name for yourself, you need to adapt and evolve yourself to pursue this type of career.
How to Hone Your Skills
Regardless of what route you end up taking to transform your passion into a career, you’ll want and need to continue to hone and develop your skills. The world of media is very cut-throat, and you need to be adaptable to create campaigns, art, or projects that continue to speak to audiences.
Without that ability to connect with customers, your career options will fall through. That’s why you must continually adapt and build on your skills.
How you hone your skills will depend entirely on your needs. While the practice may work for some, others may need a formal education to help them refine their skillset and make them marketable.
Don’t just focus on your creative skills, either. To succeed, you need a few essential quantitative skills to back up your art.
1. Practice, Practice, Practice
Regardless of what your art may be, practice is essential. You cannot improve without trial and error. Not only will this let you cultivate a unique voice, but it’s also how you’ll stumble upon genius and finally discover your voice. This applies to artists, filmmakers, and writers alike. If you aren’t working on creating (and finishing) projects, then you need to start now.
Not only will this help you develop your creative skills, but it will also help by creating a robust portfolio for your future employers or clients.
2. Take Courses, Workshops, and Classes
Don’t be afraid to take courses or workshops. Sometimes you just need someone to show you the ropes. This tip is going to help those working within visual media overwritten, yes, because learning how to use new tools and techniques is more of a science than an art.
For writers and those working on improving their ability to craft a narrative, workshopping is the best tool you have at your disposal. Putting together that narrative takes practice, and unlike static visual stories, they need to be hammered out through discussion.
3. Earn a Marketing Degree
If you want to transition from a simple storyteller to an effective marketer, you’ll need to rethink your approach. While storytelling is a massive part of marketing, it isn’t the only skill that you’ll need.
Marketers need to understand the audience, think of unique and innovative content strategies, be able to use the marketing tools and platforms effectively, and, of course, must be able to prove their concept. This is done through analysis and testing, which isn’t something that comes naturally.
It can be daunting to expand your storytelling skillset into analysis, but this is where you can truly hone your abilities and improve your career. Being good at something is just the first step; being able to prove you are is the second. In marketing, it isn’t just about building a campaign that gets signed off on; it’s about building a campaign that brings in a healthy ROI.
While not every campaign you work on is going to be a roaring success, the right approach can help improve your efforts and, in turn, can help boost your career (so long as you follow up with the right career-boosting approach, like using your network and investing in your own personal brand).
Before you get ahead of yourself, you will need to build the skills you don’t have and hone in on the ones you do. A degree is one of the best ways to tackle both goals with one stone.
Types of Degrees to Consider
There are many different degrees out there, and the right one for you will depend entirely on the role you want to work towards, your interests, and your current education level.
If you are at the very start of your career, earning a business and marketing degree or a management and marketing degree can help prepare you for a range of job options by bolstering your skillset in several industries.
If you already have a degree, then going back for an undergraduate can feel like a waste of both time and money. The good news is that your English, Creative Writing, or similar degree can qualify you to take on a marketing or communications master’s degree. These degrees are shorter, more focussed on specific career skill building, and are nowadays offered entirely online so that you don’t need to uproot your life just to go back to education.
Marketing or Communications?
Marketing is a type of communications degree. In fact, you’re actually better off comparing degrees based on their course content and outcomes than the title itself. Most degree options will also let you specialize in a type of marketing or approach or even give you an integrated degree option that lets you specialize in both the creative and the analytical aspects of marketing.
A top online communications masters degree will help you understand all the essential skills and processes behind building a campaign and give you the option to specialize either between integrated marketing or content marketing (or some variation of those).
Ultimately you will need to decide what skills you’ll either need or want to use on a daily basis. You may have a specific career goal you want to work towards, or you may know the skills you want to develop and how you want to work in the future, but you are flexible on what your role will ultimately look like.
Online or Campus
For most professionals, the only real option is an online degree. Online degrees give you access to quality education without the need to relocate. In some cases, you may even be able to continue to work while you pursue your degree. Both options give adults more flexibility. You can continue living in your own home, commit to your personal responsibilities, and be near your support network.
Attending campus can also be a great option if you want to expand your world. Some people like going to university in person so that they can establish a life in a new part of the world. Others just prefer that type of education.
There isn’t a better option, just the best option for you and your needs.
Accreditation
Accreditation isn’t everything, but when it comes to vetting online degrees, it can be a very powerful tool. In marketing, the accreditation you’ll want to keep an eye out for is the ACEJMC accreditation. This accreditation ensures that the course you’re considering adheres to the highest possible standards, so you know you’ll be getting a quality education.
Building Your Personal Brand
The best part of being creative is that you have concrete products to show to clients or employers. This could be the visual art you’ve made or previous marketing campaigns you’ve made. Either way, you have a portfolio at your disposal.
Having a portfolio, however, is just step one. You also need to establish a name for yourself. You can do this by:
- Entering competitions
- Writing guest posts
- Getting interviewed
- Collaborating with other artists
- Building an online fanbase
- And more
Use all the tricks at your disposal to create an audience and build your name. Between that, networking, and your skillset, you’ll have all the tools you’ll need to start improving your career.
Read Also:
