4 Musts for Any Advertising Major

Mad Men personality Don Draper once said, "If you don't like what's being said, change the conversation." Therein lies the hallmark of the wonderful world of advertising: Influencing consumer conversation -- whether interpersonal or intrapersonal -- with the distinctive voice of a brand's campaigns.

Though in actuality the industry exists as much more "lax" than luxe, advertising fosters a creative, fun and fast-paced learning environment for those lucky enough to land positions within it.

I chose to study advertising because the shoe fit; my knowledge of journalism and graphic design combined with my passion for digital media and psychology led me to the advertising field like a beaming, neon arrow.

1. FIND YOUR NICHE

Advertising is characterized by four pillars: Account services, account planning, media planning and creative (which includes art and copywriting). Account services focus on client relationships, account and media planning research consumer behavior and the creative team crafts advertisement wording and design.

2. LEARN NEW MEDIA SKILLS

Advertising targets emerging platforms like social media as its new primary form of exposure. Adopting knowledge of SEO, coding, and even blogging will benefit you threefold when it comes time for that interview. This list of the most in-demand digital marketing skills explains how you can start developing those mentioned plus more right now.

3. PAY ATTENTION TO ADS

While most people can't escape them quick enough, it's your job to keep an eye out. Whether on TV, in magazines or online, paying attention to advertisements will clue you in on the do's and don'ts of great campaigns.

4. BE COMMITTED

Not trait persuades more than passion.You can't teach a person to love an industry, but you can teach them the skillsets associated with it. Embrace your interest in your advertising niche and use it to inspire others -- amateurs and experts.

What's the next step for you in your pursuit of an advertising degree?

Leave a comment below or reach out to The LC Studio on Twitter.

How to Make the Very Best of a Communications Degree

Congratulations, young Padawan, on your interest in pursuing communications! I jump for joy at the expansion of the population of young professional communicators. We aren't like everyone else. It's okay; We can say that. It's our little secret. Bask in the egotism for a second, because the bad news is next.

Unlike other students, the plight of the communication major entails both classroom conscientiousness and real world experience. In the end, the worth of your communication degree equates to more than just the number of tests you aced or spirals you filled. Don't let those be all you can show for years of hard work. Follow these tips to ensure you make the very best of your time, money and degree.

What You Should Know About Online Internships

Last fall, I was going to community college to prepare for transfer to the university I now attend. I dabbled as an editor for college newspaper. I worked part-time as a graphic designer at a custom t-shirt shop. Though a busy bee by appearance, I lacked creative stimulation. Thus, I decided to peruse the web for an internship to build my skills as a copyeditor.

With little time and effort expended, I found my glass slipper: a copyediting internship based around my other interests and founded in a bustling city with a telecommuting capability. Perfect.

Dim the lights. Cast the curtains. Cue Bach's "Come Sweet Death." It was that bad.

What began as a fortuitous writing gig led by a laxe group of young business people soon morphed into a stressful conglomerate of missed Skype calls and vague deadlines. I should've known better. I e-mailed my two-week notice after only a couple months on the job. 

Landing a fitting job or internship is tough enough without the internet -- abundant with scams, technical issues and miscommunication -- as a confounding variable.

Avoid my mistake and follow these tips to avoid a scam, discover a trustworthy company and ensure you land the right internship for you:

• Is the company legitimate?

You can check the Better Business Bureau and Ripoff Report to find out.

• Does the company’s website contain important contact information?

Look for an address, phone number, e-mail address and names of important employees.

• What kind of person is the company looking for?

Does the internship call for experience with a certain program? Should the intern work well with deadlines? What personality traits are associated with the position?

• What are the responsibilities of the internship?

Ask for a list detailing expected duties to avoid being saddled with "fine print" jobs, like cleaning up the company e-mail inbox or sending out B2B mail.

• Is the internship paid or unpaid?

• If the internship is paid, what’s the payment method?

Hourly? Pay-per-word? Pay-per-click?

• How long does the internship last?

• How many hours per week are expected?

• Does the internship count as college credit?

Some universities offer actual "classes" to fill with internships. Other times, you have to submit an internship for approval by your school before any college credit is accepted.

• Do interns go through a training process?

• Will you work alone, with another intern or with employees?

• How will you be interacting with employees or other interns?

E-mail? Skype? Phone calls?

• How often will you interact with employees or other interns?
• Is there a contract? Is there an NDA?

Usually, you'll have to sign some kind of paperwork before you start working as an intern. This can including a background check request and a Non-Disclosure Agreement.

• Who retains ownership rights of the content you produce?

Usually, whoever you work for retains full ownership rights of anything you produce, including blog posts, graphic designs and videos. Ask what the company policy is.

Would you ever pursue an online internship? Why or why not?

Leave a comment below or reach out to The LC Studio on Twitter.

 

Do's & Don'ts of Business Card Design

Another Friday is upon us, creative cats! It's been a tough week for me, balancing school work, upkeeping my apartment, taking care of my fur munchkin and finding time to relax. 

When I feel like I've been grinding my gears too hard, I find peace of mind by experimenting with graphic design. It provides a creative outlet for me when I feel overwhelmed by the pressure of "do this, not that" in my day-to-day life. I get really stressed out when I feel like I'm being forced to live a linear life with only one "right" direction. Being creative grants me the freedom to do whatever I want to do. Also, it gives me the chance to make something awesome to share with other writers, designers and entrepreneurs! 

This week's freebie focuses on personal branding through business cards. Whether your brand is new on the market or well established, it's crucial to have a business card handy at all times for a few different reasons:

1. It's your pocket-sized resume. A business card, whether for your business or just for you as a person, represents a short-and-sweet version of your professional skills. 
2. It's a great branding tool. A business card is a priceless medium for marketing yourself to potential employers or clients. Great business cards not only describe the person or business but also project the brand identity by using typography, logos and color theory.
3. It's a great networking tool. Exchanging business cards with someone is an easy, quick and cheap way to make an impression. I keep nearly every business card I get. Usually the next day, I look up that person's website or social media account they provided on their card.

While business cards are an invaluable asset to your personal brand, it's not always so easy to design one. Lucky for you, The LC Studio is here to help. Without further ado, I present to you my nifty little guide to the do's and don'ts of business card design.

You can save the image directly from this post, or you can download the PDF instead. Happy designing and have a great weekend, friends!

Click the beautiful blue link below to start designing an award-winning business card:

Do's & Don'ts of Business Card Design PDF

Can Introverts Succeed in Communications?

When I was nine years old, I started a cat club based in a blanket fort built from Scotch tape and push pins in the 4 by 6 foot space in my closet. I was the only member.

I wrote rules on a piece of paper torn from a journal, and I displayed it as a grand degree on one interior wall. With push pins. Rule number one: Do not talk about cat club. Rule number two: Cats only. I spent hours at a time lounged in my makeshift closet fort with Barbie pillows and my CD player, enjoying the stress-free privacy before I even fully understood what stress was. Looking back, I recognize this kind of behavior as true introversion. Only an introverted child would create a social organization designed for complete antisocial activities. Growing up, I considered my tendencies to crave solitude just part of who I was. It wasn't until I became an "adult" that I noticed how people use introversion in a derogative way.

In my experience, the average person responds one of two ways when I tell them I'm studying communications: complete misunderstanding (I once told a fellow student I was studying Mass Communication and he asked me how many languages I knew) or stigmatized surprise (“So you must be, like, really bubbly and stuff, huh?”). While I find the prior taxing, I've been most upset to discover the prevalence of this stereotype that communication majors are all cookie cutter copies of one extraverted personality. That idea doesn't seem to plague other industries, like business, health or technology. Why communications?

Forbes reporter Nick Morgan touched on this idea in his article about introverts and public speaking jobs. “We are so fixated in this tumultuous era on the differences among cultures” he writes, “that we have a hard time accepting the similarities.” Indeed, we do, as confirmed by tons of social psychological research; Humans are biologically programmed to categorize each other based on certain traits like gender, race, age or appearance. In ancestral times, this was essential to survival because it helped humans distinguish between friendly and hostile tribes, but today it seems to do more harm than good. Grouping people based on similar traits, though an innate behavior, leads us to such hot-button issues as sexism and racism.

The categorization of introverts and extraverts is rampant in the communications industry, probably due to the fact that it's been widely perpetuated as a quantitative measure of talkativeness ("On a scale of 1-10" kind of thing). However, introversion and extraversion are more so descriptions of how people absorb and expend energy, or how much value a person places on social time versus alone time. Come to find out, these traits are actually based in biology and extend into a larger multi-spectrum concept developed by British psychologist Hans Eysenck (see above) that even further dispels the idea that introversion-extraversion is a one way street. It uses quadrants to categorize people based on levels of stability and introversion/extraversion.

People who pursue the communications field do so for generally the same reasons: They love and are skilled at communicating with other people, whether it be orally, verbally or visually. It's this array of abilities that makes mass media possible. It takes all kinds of communicators to make the world go round, so don't allow anyone to make you feel inferior about your particular set of strengths and weaknesses.

Personally, I hate public speaking. I even hate talking to people over the phone. I know I'm not very good at it. But I know I'm a great writer, I have a pretty strong vocabulary and I'm a good at teaching others how to be good communicators. I choose to love myself for those skills I have and try to be the very best I can be in those areas. Plus, I work on my weak areas. I took a Speech Communication class last spring in which I had to give a presentation as part of my grade. It was hard, but I learned some really useful public speaking tips that help me feel more confident doing something I've never felt good at. I accept myself as a introvert. It makes me a better writer. It makes me the person I am, and the same goes for all you reading this. Whether you identify as an extrovert, introvert or neither, your place in the communications field is entirely dependent on your creative abilities, not whether you prefer a Netflix marathon to a night on the town.

If you need any more reason to embrace your skillset, check out this quote from Apple CEO Tim Cook that he gave during an interview with Charlie Rose in Sep 2014:

"I think each person, if you’re a CEO, the most important thing is to have, to me, is to pick people around you that aren’t like you, that complement you. Because you want to build a puzzle, you don’t want to stack chiclets up and have everyone be the same.believe in diversity with a capital D. And that’s diversity in thought and diversity any way you want to measure it. And so the people that surround me are not like me. They have skills that I don’t have. I may have some that they don’t have. What we do as a team collectively are able to do some incredible things."
Tim Cook, CEO, Apple