Career as a Media Planner

Media planners, also known as brand planners or brand strategists, work at advertising agencies and create clients’ ad campaigns. The media planners interact somewhat with the creatives — i.e. the copywriters creating the ads and the ad copy — but predominantly with the clients making decisions about how a media campaign will unfold. A big part of the media planner’s job is to pick the right kinds of places (the correct TV shows and magazines) to place different ads so that the client’s product (and brand) is advertised to the correct audience.

 

 

The main thing a media planner needs is a willingness, and eagerness, to learn about the advertising world. The job can be very social, because it entails working with clients, so an interest in socializing with colleagues and clients is important. Also key is an understanding of how marketing and advertising work. How can a client — a company with a specific product — best brand themselves? Media planners need to be able to devise strategies for branding and, to do so, they must know the entertainment world (what TV shows and magazines attract what audience) so they can place the ads appropriately. Media planners need to know which shows, websites, magazines and other purveyors of entertainment will draw the client’s desired audience.

While a lot of media planners will learn about the intricacies of the advertising world by working at an agency, bringing an interest to this aspect of media is key to success in a job like this.

Career as a TV News Anchor

 

At the networks the TV news anchors present the news. You know the people — the ones sitting there behind a desk (or in the field) telling you what’s happening in the world that day. Whether broadcasting from a small local station or manning one of the network’s primetime broadcasts, TV news anchors compile news stories and deliver them.

Being a news anchor requires a number of skills, the first of which is a comfort in front of the camera. There’s an element of show business in the job of a news anchor — not only do you need to be comfortable in front of the camera but you need to make people want to watch you. The latter may not be something you can learn but, certainly, gaining comfort speaking to the camera is a skill you can hone.
A news anchor also needs to be able to think on his feet. While many anchors will read scripts — off of a teleprompter or notes on their desk — information can also be transmitted aurally. If news is breaking information may be fed to an anchor on the spur of the moment from a producer. The anchor needs to be able to listen to what’s happening and then relay the information to the audience in a clear and concise manner.

How much reporting is involved in an anchor’s job is dependent on where the anchor works and what type of broadcast they work on. Some anchors, especially at local news stations, will report their own stories (perhaps with help from a producer or other staffer), and write the scripts they then transmit on the air. In that sense, an anchor works very much like a reporter with the main difference being that they need to craft the story in a way that works for television.Anchors need to get time in front of the camera. Most jobs are gotten with a tape, or a sample of your work on-air. Before you look for a job as an anchor, you need to have done an internship at a local station (and gotten some time on-air), or studied communications in college.

There are also myriad opportunities on-air at the various cable news channels.

CAREERS IN MAGAZINES

 

 

 

 

If you love magazines a career in magazine publishing might be ideal for you. Editors, writers, photographers and others bring a magazine together and the exciting world of magazine publishing can be a glamorous field to work in for creative people with a passion for print.

1. Art Director
Art directors are responsible for the look of a magazine. If you notice, Vanity Fair has quite a different look than, say, Entertainment Weekly; this is, in large part, the work of art directors, who oversee how the words and pictures on every page of the magazine will match up to create a cohesive and signature look.

2. Copy Editor
Someone needs to make sure all the stories in the magazine check out, grammatically; that someone is the copy editor. Copy editors combat dangling modifiers, errant commas and every other grammatical no-no in the book. If you’re passionate about language — specifically grammar and usage — a job as a copy editor could be perfect for you.

3. Fact Checker
Every story that appears in a magazine needs to be checked for accuracy; this is where a fact checker comes in. All magazines rely on fact checkers to ensure that quotes and all factual information included in an article are accurate. If you’re someone who’s good with detail, and appreciates the fact-finding aspect of journalism, this is the right job for you.

4. Magazine Editor
Magazine editors are the wordsmiths behind the content in magazines. While some editors do more writing, others are more heavily involved with assigning stories and editing them. (A good assigning editor needs to have a rolodex full of strong writers to contact.) Either way, this job is a perfect fit for someone who’s passionate about magazine journalism.

5. Photo Editor
Photo editors oversee, as you probably guessed, the photography that appears in a magazine. Although most photo editors don’t actually take the pictures — their job is primarily to hire other photographers to do that — it’s up to them to ensure that the right image winds up on the page. If you have a background in photography, and love working with professionals in the field, this could be a great job for you.

Careers as account executives -ad campaigns

In short, account executives oversee ad campaigns. Advertising agencies are multifaceted, in so far as they create campaigns for clients across a number of mediums — print, TV, online. Because of this fact there are various people working on different aspects of a single campaign.

While one department within an agency might be creating a series of print ads for a client, another department might be fashioning a series of television ads. Despite this fact all the ads being created need to be getting across the same message, and it’s the account executive’s job to make sure that’s happening.

Put another way, the account executive is there to make sure all the people creating the various components of the campaign are working in a unified manner, and staying on target with the message of the campaign as hammered out by the media planner.

The account executive is also the liaison between the client and the advertising agency. This means that it’s up to the account executive to distill the client’s wishes to the creatives at the agency, and vice versa.most agencies look to hire people with a college degree. Account executives, who need to be skilled at working with people and distilling ideas and directions in a clear and concise way, work their way up at advertising agencies. Generally account execs prove their worth by successfully handling accounts and moving on to work on multiple accounts and/or bigger accounts. Above the account executive position is the account manager.

Become a Blogger

 One of the biggest changes to come with the evolution of new media has been the proliferation of blogs and bloggers. As blogs on seemingly every conceivable topic have been launched, media outlets began publishing more and more of them. Now established media outlets — magazines, newspapers, TV stations, etc. — are hiring bloggers and launching blogs.

Bloggers, in many ways, are a cross between reporters and op-ed columnists. What largely distinguishes blogging from regular reporting is that bloggers are often citing information second-hand — the amount of original reporting bloggers do varies — and they are injecting more opinion into their pieces, or posts. Bloggers are, more often than not, pulling original reporting from other sources and then commenting on it. (This site, for example, features a blog about media careers on its homepage. And, on that blog, I’m culling stories and information about the media world, from other sources, and commenting on it.)

While many of the blogs launched by papers and magazines rely on staff editors for their content, the expansion of the blogosphere has created a crop of new jobs in the media world. And, as more and more content migrates to the web, companies are increasingly looking to hire people to blog and write original online stories.

Career as an Online Editor

Online editors, also known as online producers or web producers, oversee the content on websites. An online editor functions, in some ways, as a magazine editor, blogger and journalist rolled into one. Because an online editor is overseeing content on a website, he or she may need to follow traffic patterns to glean what content draws more users to the site.

Because web traffic can be tracked in ways magazine readership cannot — companies can track how many people receive a magazine but not what articles are the most popular within the magazine — online editors are often expected to create content with a deeper eye to how it’s being consumed. Online editors also need to have a deeper understanding of how a website works.

The good thing about jobs in online editing and producing is that they’re plentiful. Online content creation is one of the growing areas in the media world because so many companies — traditional print publications and non-traditional ones — are eager to capture readers online. Interestingly it’s a relatively new field as well, so a lot of experimentation is going on.

To break into this field, you’ll need experience working online and creating online content. Employers want to see online editors who understand how readers are reading online, so you need to have experience working at a website. In short, you need to be able to demonstrate you’ve written for the Web and know how to do that, so your clips should be from websites. Internships working for websites is also key. Additionally, experience blogging and knowledge of HTML will help.

Online editors need to be comfortable with both writing and technology. Because an online editor is crafting stories — or editing the stories of other writers — he or she needs strong writing and journalistic skills. But an online editor also needs to be interested in, and aware of, the technology which wraps around the story. Should a particular story include a video component? Where on the site should it be placed? If the story doesn’t include video, should it include pictures? An online editor might have to answer all those questions and then be able to use whatever tool is required to add the needed component, be it video or pictures.

An online editor may also need to be comfortable with gathering and analyzing a certain amount of data. Unlike writers and editors who work in print, an online editor might need to track what kinds of stories generate more traffic to inform the creation of future stories. In other words, an online editor needs to be comfortable paying attention to traffic stats and incorporating lessons learned from those stats in the content creation process.

An art director

An art director oversees the art, i.e. the photographs and drawn images, that appear in newspapers, magazines, ad campaigns and on book covers. An art director is usually the person who oversees the entire design department, working with photo editors and editors to coordinate what images will match up with what words.

More than simply assigning a photographer or illustrator to create an image, an art director works on creating visual concepts. At a magazine an art director would work to create the specific look and feel of the entire magazine, ensuring there’s a unified visual look throughout. If you notice that certain magazines maintain different types of “looks” — with certain layouts and certain types of images — you’re picking up on the work of the art director.

Where Do Art Directors Work?

Art directors work throughout media in advertising, in book publishing and at magazines. Art directors usually specialize in one sector — focusing on, say, advertising or book publishing — and the type of work they do varies on their subset of the industry. At magazines art directors conceive of layouts and the art that will match up with the various stories in the magazine. At book publishing houses art directors often focus solely on book covers, hiring designers to create those covers and overseeing their work. (An art director at some book publishing houses may also do some of the designing.) At ad agencies art directors, usually working with acopywriter, create the images that go with an ad campaign. At ad agencies art directors may specialize in a specific area, such as print (creating ads for magazines), TV or Web.

How Do You Become an Art Director?

Most art directors have degrees from art schools, where they’ve studied graphic design, photography and drawing. (A background in graphic design is usually essential for most art director jobs today.) In today’s job market art directors also need to know various computer programs (most run on Macs) that allow them to work with everything from photographs to font sizes. While photoshop is a standard program all art directors should know, this is just one of many. For more on specific programs art directors should know, you can check out this video.

Art directors who’ve gone to art school are usually trained in the computer programs needed to get jobs in the field. Art schools will also provide candidates with a portfolio, which is necessary to land most jobs in this field. Art directors, who often work up to that title (from assistant positions), need to show examples of their work. Someone looking to work as an art director in an ad agency, for example, need to show a potential employer sample ad campaigns he’s created. To get these samples, you need to have experience from an internship or from your art school experience.

 

Career as a TV News Producer

TV news producers work for TV news shows, either on newscasts or shows . A TV news producer works very much like a journalist, finding stories and then reporting them. But unlike a straight-up print news reporter, a TV news producer needs to conceive a television news segment. This means a TV news producer must be able to oversee other employees and understand how to present a story visually.

The Skills You Need

A TV news producer needs to have strong journalistic skills. Not only does a TV news producer need to be able to identify and research a story, but he or she also needs to be able to work with a team of people — writers and sometimes an anchor — to put that story together. A producer may also need some technical knowledge and a background in production.

If you watch a news story on TV, either a segment on the evening news or on one of the aforementioned TV news shows, you’ll see that visual components mesh with an overarching story. A TV news producer needs to understand some of the technical aspects of putting a story together — some jobs may require producers to have the technical skills to cut and piece together their own footage –- along with the ability to craft accompanying commentary. In other words, a producer needs to be proficient in writing a script for a segment as well as cutting and piecing that segment together.

How to Get a Job as a TV News Producer

A TV news producer needs experience working for a show. Having a degree in communications or journalism can help but, ultimately, an internship at a news program or a TV station is the first way to get your foot in the door. From there one can work up to a full-time job writing news for TV and then segue into a job as a producer, which is a more senior position.

Creative Writing

Are you fond of writing? Do you have the flair to juggle words to explain your thoughts creatively? Creative writing is another potential career field that promises good monetary returns. But the field is not for everyone. A career in creative writing is considered as an artistic work gifted by God to special people. These people are the creative writers, known by various names such as novelists, poets, lyricists etc. who are engaged in writing books, articles, stories, especially as an occupation or profession. Most of writers have magical powers in writing and through their work, they can influence the readers and can make them upset, disgusted, spellbound or happy.

Creating writing is a long process which requires a lot of research and hard work. Creative writing is the writing in which a writer aims to express his/ her emotions, feelings, imaginative ideas and thoughts, through prose and poetic verses. Any kind of writing like novels, poems, stories, drama, autobiography, script writing, copy writing etc. can be considered as creative writing.

The foremost and the essential things required to become a creative writer is the passion for writing and love to communicate with words. Creative writing is a field which requires a lot of imagination, observation and an inborn ability to create pictures of the natural world. One can become a good writer by reading articles on variety of topics and styles; experiencing life in every way and learning and listening to a lot of idioms, accents, and local expressions. One can also improve their writing skills by taking a course in creative writing.
The major task of creative writer is to create a work in an interesting or appealing manner. Each work has to be organized cohesively with a clear beginning, middle and an end and must be targeted at an audience. Creative writers are expected to deliver original and high class content with no grammar and spelling mistakes. Copying of content from any other media is strictly prohibited in the field of creative writing, as it may create serious legal complications. So one has to write the content, whatever the topics may be in an original style and language. For this, a thorough research is needed that can be done by referring related informative book, encyclopedia, talking to people proficient in the topic or by searching the internet.

Many people enjoy creative writing as a hobby. They can turn it into a profession and start earning with great opportunities. The demand for creative writers has increased at the global level, with the recent boom in the print media. Scope in this field is endless and one can become a novelist, journalist, short story writer, copywriter and so on. Creative writing jobs promise a good career path with excellent growth prospects and attractive salaries, if it is taken seriously with complete devotion.

A Career in Mass Communication

Book publishing, public relations and journalism are some of the various career options open to an Educate person in mass communication

Dennis McQuail, father of modern mass communication once said, “Communication increases commonality.” His theory proves that information is best represented by accurate facts. Graduates of a mass communication course suit the given profile. Entry into the field can be through varied courses. 

Depending on the course, institutes often formulate their own selection process. These may include a written test, personal interview or a group discussion. While the written test assess the aspirant’s analytical ability, reasoning and command over a given language, the personal interview and discussions test leadership qualities.

Mass communication is a wide field and includes print, electronic and new media as disciplines. New media disseminates information through both web space and mobile. Students are selected on the basis of their aptitude in these fields.

Students aspiring to become journalists must, however, have a nose for news. “Articulating, evaluating and describing a situation are key components to judge a potential journalism student,” says the Director  ”Today we have about 1,400 television channels and 400 daily news channels. Also, new media is booming and paving the way for innumerable job opportunities,”