Advice from a Marketing Professional
Thomas Ritchie is a strategic digital media specialist at Great West Casualty Insurance Company in South Sioux City, Nebraska. Before his current position, Thomas held multiple positions including teaching at both Morningside University and Western Iowa Tech in Sioux City Iowa. Thomas graduated from Mount Marty University in Yankton, South Dakota where he studied Marketing, Business, Mass Communication and Journalism.
When Thomas first graduated, he worked in journalism. He moved to a marketing position when newsrooms started losing popularity. At his position now, Thomas works with social media, lead generation, copywriting, and much more. Thomas likes his job because he gets to learn new things and each day is different from the last. “It’s never the same two days in a row. It’s really exciting.”
The following is a collection of advice from Thomas Ritchie, a marketing professional.
- “AI isn’t going to take your job, it’s going to take the jobs of the people who don’t know how to use it.”
Thomas encourages upcoming professionals to learn to use technology in a way that will assist them with their professional life. One example that Thomas gave is about sports and emotion. Sports are all about emotion. Artificial Intelligence can explain what happened in a sporting event, but it cannot capture the moment like a human can.
- Be really good at one thing and be open to learning skills that can enhance what you already know.
Thomas advises future professionals to perfect one skill instead of learning a little bit about a lot of things. It is good to be versatile and well rounded, but at the same time, companies want people with specialized skills. Thomas says to learn one skill, then learn a secondary skill that enhances the primary. An example would be perfecting writing and understanding it well, then learning graphic design or photography. The photos or graphics can help enhance the writing. Overall, Thomas recommends being able to tell a story in multiple ways.
- When you don’t know, ask questions.
This is a common piece of advice to aspiring professionals. Thomas emphasizes the importance of asking questions in order to learn new skills.
- “Don’t get into touchy subjects.”
Thomas recommends staying away from topics that could cause division. If the situation arises, though, he guides, “Take a stand. Write a story. Stand by it.”
- Don’t text and drive, especially around trucks.
So we’re doing listicles are we? I can work with that, but
you still need to think about goos leads. You have to get
the reader to the list.
Just Ritchie after the first reference.
Some good advice.
Comment by fuglsang — October 16, 2023 @ 7:43 pm