One of the jobs of the future in digital marketing is that of the Communication Specialist. This is why I interviewed Maria Giulia Ganassini, Communication Specialist at MailUp. Let’s find out what skills are needed to fill this role in the best possible way!
Who is the Communication Specialist and what does he/she do?
I am in charge of content creation, drafting the editorial plan, and deciding which channels to use to convey each piece of content. In parallel, I am in charge of managing the community, i.e.the social channels, not only creating content but also moderating the groups and pages, which are very important for us as we are a B2B company and therefore have a lot of activity within this container.
What skills should a Communication Specialist have?
The skills a Marketing Communication Specialist must have vary greatly depending on the level of seniority. First, it is essential to have a very good knowledge of Italian, to be able to write well. Then you need to be able to untangle topics that are often unfamiliar: when I started working at MailUp I was not very knowledgeable in this area, but then as time went by I learned.
It certainly requires a lot of goodwill and an aptitude for learning new things, for being able to remix them by making them your own, clear and simple.
So you definitely have to be eager to learn new things, be good at writing, and have good presentation skills, in fact, I also create webinars. You have to have very good organizational skills and a lot of critical thinking. It’s a very creative job, it’s not a competitive job, it’s not a job that has to do with numbers, so it’s less analytical. You have to be able to approach a topic from many angles, which angle of the story is most interesting for the target audience.
Of course, one must have a solid understanding of marketing, digital marketing, and copywriting.
SEO skills are very useful, because when writing for the web one must never forget the ranking factor, and finally, skills in the creation of graphic assets, such as Photoshop and Illustrator or other less professional tools found on the Internet that allow one to do this work, are very useful.
Certainly, one is not born “learned”, all these are skills that one acquires over time. The important thing is to have the right aptitude when you start out. I, for example, am completely self-taught when it comes to Photoshop, I learned by asking and experimenting, and I like this tool, so I learned to use tools and strategies from those who know more than me.
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What tools do you use on a daily basis?
First of all, I use, of course, the whole Google suite: Gmail, Docs, Spreadsheet, and all the Drive tools because it is very useful when there are several people working on the same project.
I use Photoshop, as I said, for creating graphic assets; Illustrator, albeit in a secondary manner; WordPress, and in particular the MailUp blog where I write content. It is very important to be familiar with the functioning of this CMS and its logic. For social media, I use a post-scheduling tool called Buffer, specifically the Pro version Bitly, which allows me to keep track of clicks and know how the links I post are performing in real time. Last but not least, is Google Analytics, which allows me to keep track of all the data.
How to become a Communication Specialist?
There are many paths to get to do what I do. I had a path that was not very linear and that did not lead straight to this job: I studied literature and worked for several years in publishing. Then I switched to business communication, also doing a master’s degree, and in this way I “reconverted”.
Actually, there are many ways to get into communication: you can start by studying pure marketing, and then deciding that that is your way, if you are good at communication of course.
It is easy to start with social media, for example, because it is a medium we all use. I stress, however, that knowing how to make two posts on Facebook is by no means the same as being a social media manager, but it is a fairly easy way to enter companies at an entry-level. Once you are in this position, you can try to specialize in something more evolved, i.e. become a more advanced social media manager or move to content creation in a broader perspective.
Another way is to start out as an editor or copywriter, then take care of the writing of the minute content, under the creative and artistic direction of someone more senior, and then grow professionally, learn the trade, and get to be in the decision-making and strategic phase of content marketing operations.
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Communication Specialist: how much do you earn?
The salary range is very variable. It depends on the company and the seniority. An entry-level person will not earn very much: around 20-25,000 € per year as RAL because it is not a very specialized job, at least in its initial phase. It is difficult to find golden salaries, it is not one of those areas where you find very high salaries right from the start.
Even though there is a lot of competition at the grassroots level, there are not many people who can stand out, so as soon as you show that you have the ability to make strategic decisions, manage a team, and thus climb the ladder, let’s say, then the salaries can be raised, even to EUR 30-40,000 per year. It depends a lot on seniority.
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