For the last couple of years, I have styled myself by my favorite, all time best job title of my life:
DIGITAL NINJA.
As my business is growing, from a one-man shop into an agency, and my role in my projects is changing from artist to manager, I have decided it is time for an upgrade.
Taking on a new job title (especially when it is self-styled) is a changing of the costume worn on the stage of the world. No longer will I introduce myself with a roguish grin and declare,
“I’m a digital ninja. I make websites, videos, and content marketing campaigns for small-to-medium sized businesses that want to amplify their message to their audience across the social media sphere.”
I’ve grown up a little. I’ve upgraded my target market. I’ve raised my prices and doubled my staff. My role is no longer that of the craftsman, creating digital products on my own laptop that represent the brands and messages of my clients. Now I am the project manager, the foreman who directs other creatives to make components that, when assembled, give my clients a strong digital promotion toolbox. I am a
DIGITAL PRODUCER
I help businesses that are ashamed of their website go through a digital upgrade that allows them to connect with their audience and sell more of their services to new customers throughout the social media sphere.
By building a team of experts, I now have access to greater skills than I can manage on my own. My programmers are brilliant, my designers are pure artists, and my writers are clever and witty in ways I can only aspire to.
Having a decent helping of all of these skills is not enough for my company to be the best; I need to find the best digital craftsmen available, and pull them into the projects that I create and define with my clients.
This is really the best position in the digital creation process for me to be: up at the top, orchestrating. I love the idea phase, and sifting through all the possibilities; now, instead of looking at the results of the sifting and thinking, ‘boy, I’ve got a lot of work to do,’ now I delegate everything to my team, and move on to the next idea strategy session.
I’ve had to go through all my social media bios (and believe me, there’s a lot) and update them all, replacing ‘digital ninja’ with ‘digital producer.’ It’s been worth it, because staying current on all of the social media platforms available is part of what makes me unique.
To stay on the cutting edge, I have to constantly stay moving. I am always studying the newest tools to uncover the ones that are really useful for digital promotion.
In between all of this study, I apply what I have learned to producing digital communications for my clients. It is much more efficient than doing all of the work as well, and now my resources (and capabilities are much greater than when I was just…a ninja.
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