Digital skills your writer needs right now

I know successful business people who can’t add up for toffee. Likewise, my design skills suck. You can’t do it all, which is why you need to bring in a specialist.

Or be prepared to give it a try.

Which is often my approach, and why I’ve got a better understanding of what digital is all about.

Looking back at when I set up, eight years ago, I realise how far I’ve come from traditional copywriting. In those days, campaigns were either digital or print, delivered by separate departments using their own writers. One writer would come up with copy for the point of sale and outdoor posters, and a web writer would know how to write the website.

Today, there’s no room for a media specialist, when it comes to writing. You need to be able to move deftly from working on original copy for a marketing email to preparing product packaging that’s bang on brand.

Writing strong and unique web content goes without saying. But small businesses, in my experience, also need a copywriter who is happy to work directly on their website. Learning WordPress and a bit of html coding didn’t seem such a stretch if I needed to solve the problem of creating and updating content. Nor has:

• Writing effective SEO meta descriptions
• Sourcing, resizing images and adding image alt text
• Composing killer social media headlines
• Adding video, podcasts, photography and GIFs
• Testing, tracking and monitoring campaigns
• Drilling down into the web analytics to review performance.

There will always be specialists in social media, SEO, user experience and online advertising. Close on their heels, will be a writer who has an understanding of the medium which we’re working on as a team. That’s me.