How I Tried Becoming a Somebody at the Workspace
Once I became a pro with handling one key account, the brand work started to EXPAND and so the team started to expand.
I was shortly introduced to a new digital trainee who turned out to be a brilliant chap and so I had the privilege to hand over the brand with ease to him, allowing me to take over a new brand –
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An
Automobile
Giant
Incepting from the roots of Hiroshima
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The guy who used to manage it, was leaving, so either the trainee or I was the only choice at the time to take over the reigns.
I was dying to sink my teeth into something new and the trainee was more than capable enough himself, so we had a discussion and agreed I should be the one to handle the brand at this point in time.
Moments later, I went over to the boss and walked out as the new Digital Account Manager for this new brand.
Sleepless nights consumed me once again as I raced to understand its essence.
Even though it was time consuming as hell with all the d|e>t+a@i:l/s — — — the brand embodies, studying it gave me a new angle to view my challenges from and how to solve problems by developing an uNmAtChEd aesthetic sense.
They have a story behind every single curve carved unto the bodies they sculpture –
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I
Ask
You
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Can you be anymore deeper with your art?
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It was being busy with details like these that was taking too much of my time as I aimed to get the brand campaigns absolutely right down to the core of its founder’s mind.
Whether these campaigns made it out alive, is a whole other discussion.
But a brand campaign is not the only activity that goes into building and maintaining a digital presence.
An automobile brand being the focus here, there’s –
Parts
Service
Engagement
Models
Mobile App
And website based content plans that go into the mix
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In the middle of managing the artistic bit of the brand, you have to keep up with the operational tasks of managing the –
Insights
Client Approvals
Platform Audits
Inbox
Comments
Complaints
Leads
Quality Leads
Media Plans
KPIs
Tasks Delegation
Arabic Translations and Verification
Monthly Reports
Reporting to the Boss
Self-Performance Review
And
By
Far
The hardest thing amidst all the chaos
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Keeping the content running for 33366666655555 daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss a year
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It’s quite efficient to keep the social media feed busy with beautifully composed car images, but the gang I work with believes in saying something along with those pictures and this is where things get tricky.
Every time you write a copy for a brand’s content, it’s going to open up a Pandora’s BOX of what ifs and hows.
Once a content plan is shared with the decision makers over Slack, a discussion breaks out, that is productive in its own right, but is sometimes never ending to the point of –
Something which I have to navigate through to somehow get the approvals and go live!
This is where you –
find out
How good of a C O M M U N I C A T O R you think you are –
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And
How
Much
You
Really
Are
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When you receive someone’s words via voice or text, you’ve got a small window to analyze what is it that this person wants and what is it that this person actually needs.
With content, the want is revision according to the current discussion and the need is engagement –
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The
Solution
Is
Simple
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Come up with a check list that measures the
CTA
Engagement
And
The
Brand’s Voice
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Get it approved and locked with the client. If the content is in correspondence with the checklist, you won’t need to get your approvals over anybody’s dead body.
All of this was a gigantic loop that kept me brutally engaged even when the time came to prepare the Annual Strategy that contains the current year’s numbers we achieved and the brand ideas to be executed — — next year
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I’ll be sketching out what goes into making an Annual Strategy for a brand in a future episode –
But
To
Summarize
The
Experience -
It’s the time we spend –
S
L
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P
L
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S
N
I
G
H
T
S
At the office
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Racing against time to get the job done
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Running a brand as an agency is all about communicating with the brand manager who wants only two things –
Brand Engagement
&
ROI –
I was able to keep the content running through all the approvals via my checklist to deliver brand engagement and YEAR by YEAR, we were able to generate quality leads via media planning which eventually converted to deliver the ROI –
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Delivering the ROI means putting money on the table –
Putting money on the table means reaching the end of the level –
Reaching the end of the level means going to the next level –
Next level means upping your game –
Upping your game means mastering your management!
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I jotted the functional and artistic experience of running an automobile brand in general –
But
There’s
A
Third
Part
Of
The
Experience
Which I couldn’t capture here
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The
Psychological
Experience
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The way I — S E Q U E N C E D — everything might not have told the story of how tiring all of this can get and how difficult it becomes at a certain point to keep yourself motivated to keep the loop running –
This is where
Mastering
Management
Comes
Into
Play –
You need to manage everything in a way that gives you the sense that you’re growing with what you’re doing.
It’s the absence of this feeling that makes us tired and drives us to question our purpose at our work space.
If what you’re doing is not evolving you and expanding the brand, then you’re doing something wrong!
You need to HOLD a meeting with yourself to plan the next move that feeds your mindset and grows your brand in some way, EVERYDAY!
If you’re able to do that –
You’ll
Realize
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Running a brand like this
Or
Running a brand like that
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Means nothing
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Who’s running the brand?
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Becomes
Everything
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P.S. After going through hell, I made my way to the title of –
‘The Digital Lead’ –
With the responsibility to drive the digital department which I’ve sketched out here –
