15 Top Digital Strategist Skills for Career Success

15 Top Digital Strategist Skills for Career Success

This post provides complete information on the digital strategist skills and qualities you need to develop to be successful in your job and career.

Please, read on:

The rise of the digital industry has really forced businesses and organizations into seeing the internet as a way forward towards achieving their goals.

This is because, you can reach out to people beyond your immediate environment through the employment of digital strategies and this is the business of a digital strategist.

Who is a Digital Strategist?

A digital strategist works in an organization, searches out for documented unmet needs of an organization and employ digital solutions to help the organization achieve its organizational goals.

A digital strategist can be compared to a development manager but with the use of digital technology as a means of solving problems.

So, what are the skills you will need if you want to succeed as a digital strategist?

15 Top Digital Strategist Skills for Career Success

Here are some of the top digital strategist skills and qualities to have to succeed on the job:

1. Broad knowledge of digital practices
2. Good understanding of the internet
3. Business knowledge
4. Good interpersonal skills
5. Goal driven
6. Insightful and perceptive
7. Creativity
8. Advertising/marketing skills
9. Excellent communication skills
10. Understanding of emerging digital tools
11. Objective thinking
12. Analytical skills
13. Good personality
14. Research skills
15. Willingness to improve.

1. Broad knowledge of digital practices

For someone who desires to scale up the ladder of success in the digital world, one thing they should learn are the best and safest practices obtainable in the digital world especially for someone who is a strategist in this respect.

They have to learn the latest practices.

There are ethical practices and there are unethical practices. These are some of the practices you have to know and get them down your mind and work with the ethical practices.

These practices are to guide your everyday activity online.

Remember that though the digital world does not necessary demand anyone’s physical appearance or presence, yet there are a lot of structures put in place to monitor the activity of anyone who makes use of the internet.

2. Good understanding of the internet

The internet remains the most viable tool the digital world has. This is because you can barely discuss anything that has to do with the digital world without making mention of the internet.

The internet houses every form of human endeavor, business inclusive.

So, to be a good digital strategist, you have to be grounded in the knowledge of how the internet works.

You are not expected to be at the level of someone who has no adequate knowledge of the internet.

Finding your way round the internet can actually help you be a huge presence online and become a veritable channel in the hands of your employer towards making a company dream come true.

3. Business knowledge

In this aspect, you should have a good edge over an average business man because you are exposed to more information on the internet that can help improve your job.

Your job is a business and you need business skills to succeed in it.

Though you might be an online guru, you still need some basic business skills to make inroads in the digital world.

Basic buying and selling skills should be understood by you.

Having business skills as a prerequisite for the digital strategist job should make you understand that you are selling your skills in anticipation for a good pay check.

Good business skills when combined with good IT skills can fetch you good returns both now and in the future.

4. Good interpersonal skills

As a digital strategist, you need good interpersonal skills to remain relevant and top of your job.

You deal with people every day, both in the workplace and even online.

You need good interpersonal skills to get the best out of them and also leverage on their expertise to succeed.

It is more of asking you to be a team player.

Interpersonal skills are needed for you to be able to work with different kinds of people so long as they have the ability to make good contributions to your job description.

This is very important for you to know if you want to succeed in your job.

Let’s assume you already have the kind of people you need in your job, the next you need to learn is how to keep them at their best and get the best out of them.

This implies that you will need to build a working relationship with them and make sure that they are comfortable communicating with you.

5. Goal driven

There should be something that drives you towards becoming a better digital strategist.

There is that thing you have at the back of your mind before taking up the job of a digital strategist.

That should be the goal you want to achieve either in the future or now.

Your goals should drive you and not only the pay check. The pay check cannot make you better, but your goals which drive you daily can actually make you better and cause you to strive to be the best you can be in the industry.

So, revisit your goals and take them up as a challenge.

Apart from your personal goals, there is also the place of company/organizational goals, which is the target given to you by whoever employed you.

You should work on the organizational goals alongside your own goals for you to be a better digital strategist.

6. Insightful and perceptive

Being insightful and perceptive entails having good knowledge of what the job requires at all times.

It is like the compass that shows you your way round in the industry.

You need insight to be able to keep in touch with the reality in your job.

There are past demands and there are current demands that you need to acquaint yourself with.

This is where you need insight. These demands may not be official or something someone spells out for you but something that through relentless research you were able to find out.

Through good insight, you are able to solve the problem of today as well as put yourself in a pole position to tackle the challenges of tomorrow.

You need it quite a great deal as a digital strategist. You need to see things differently and try out new things.

7. Creativity

Creativity is the mother of invention as they say.

There is always room for you to do something different from others or from what is currently obtainable.

What you know today is a product of another person’s invention and that is a product of creativity.

Sometimes some problems you face in the course of carrying out your job are merely calling out for something new to solve them.

When you try something new, you gain more knowledge, which may be of help to you in solving future problems.

Therefore, to be a stand out digital strategist, you need to think your way out of mediocrity.

Your idea remains your idea and whatever you are able to achieve through your creative thinking is a credit and a bonus to your already impressive resume.

8. Advertising/marketing skills

This is part of what you should know how to do. Marketing skill is a skill for all and sundry who desire to be exceptional in the business world.

In fact, it is one skill to have to show your level of versatility and usefulness to the employer who desires to get the best from you.

Looking at it from a different perspective, you will discover that marketing is part of your strategic abilities, which should be inherent in you as a digital strategist.

You are to be a good adviser and a strategist on how to reach out to customers through digital means.

These days the art of marketing has been made far easier than before to people due to the presence of internet and social media platforms, which you can leverage on to reach out to potential customers.

This is why you need to at least have basic marketing/advertising skills as a digital strategist.

9. Excellent communication skills

You need to have excellent communication skills to be a good advertiser or marketer, as part of what you can do demands a lot from you in the area of communication.

You have to be excellent in both written and oral communication.

You shouldn’t struggle to communicate in any way if you really want to be your best in the digital industry.

Communication is for all and must be well harnessed to reach out to potential clients in the business world.

So for you a digital strategist, you will have to train yourself to be an effective, efficient, and excellent communicator.

It is important that you learn the art of communication and know how to make effective use of this skill to reach out to potential clients or customers.

You have to be good at oral communication which you use mainly every day.

10. Understanding of emerging digital tools

The knowledge of the digital world wouldn’t be complete if you are not conversant with emerging IT tools.

There are many IT tools you need to know how to use or employ if you really wish to be a guru in your job.

Digital tools include the computers you use and some smart devices specially design to solve a particular digital problem.

For any field you are in, there is a tool you can use to effectively solve some problems you may encounter.

Take your time to follow the trend in the digital world and know where to put your effort.

Ignorance of this fact can make you irrelevant and you will find yourself in a situation where your method of doing things is tagged outdated and out of place.

11. Objective thinking

This begets positive output. Objective thinking entails you calmly analyzing trends and knowing the predictions you can make based on your findings.

To be a good digital strategist, it is not enough to think but good also that you channel your thinking to something objective or productive.

Objective thinking is not only concerned with events of the past, but also the present and the future.

This is what makes it objective thinking.

You are referred to as a digital strategist because thinking is your job.

Your thinking should be geared towards providing a lasting solution to a prevailing problem in the company or organization where you work.

So you have to be objective in your thinking and analysis.

12. Analytical skills

It is important to know that the majority of the success you will achieve is dependent on your ability to analyze events correctly.

Here is the thing you need to know about this; there are two things to analyze.

The first for you to analyze are the past events in the industry.

There are events or trends that can be traced to the past.

You can’t be a good strategist if you overlook the events or trends of the past.

The second thing to consider or analyze is the current trend.

This is somewhat like insight into what is obtainable in the industry.

When you look at the current happenings or trends, it gives you a glimpse of what the future will look like.

13. Good personality

Your personality really matters in your job description. There are some traits you will need to possess to enhance your personality or become a better person in your workplace.

Do you know that your level of influence is tied to your personality?

One trait that should be associated with your personality is confidence.

There is nothing that can take the place of good confidence. By this we are not talking about arrogance or anything of such.

Confidence will look good on you as a digital strategist.

Also, another trait people need to see in you that befits your job description is professionalism.

By this we mean being a perfect example of what anyone in your role should be.

By this we mean good work ethics, which is one way to showcase your professionalism and expertise.

14. Research skills

It is important to know that the strategy you should have in place should be a product of a productive research.

You don’t build up strategies solely on prediction, and neither do you make strategies by feelings, rather by recommendations from your research.

If you need research skills as a basic skill, then you should be good at it.

You should be more accurate in your assessment of events and trends and building on your observation and recommendation of fellow professionals in the industry.

Your research skills should be top notch. It should be on point and should consider both the past and present trends.

It should provide appropriate recommendations to solving problems, which should form part of your action plan.

This is a way to get round contemporary challenges.

15. Willingness to improve

There are people that are not bothered about improving their skills regularly.

The truth remains that you can be better than you are now.

This is because the times are changing and the digital and business world are also changing.

If you want to be a force in the business and digital industry, you need to know that you have to make conscious and practical efforts to be better than you are now.

To improve on your skills, you can read up relevant articles, magazines related to business and the digital industry, as well as attend trainings, conferences, and workshops.

These help to sharpen both your digital and business skills to help you excel in your job.

Digital Strategist Skills for Resume

If you are making a resume or CV for a digital strategist position, you will need to add the skills section to it to boost its impact on the recruiter/employer.

The skills or core competence section of your resume shows the skills and qualities you are bringing to the digital strategist job.

This can help increase your chances of being hired for the digital strategist role as it indicates your ability to succeed in the job.

You can apply the various digital strategist skills and qualities discussed on this page in making the skills section of your resume/CV.

Conclusion

The digital world is quite a competitive one and the competition may even become tougher in the years to come.

However, to be able to work in an organization as a digital strategist is not just down to your expertise alone.

You have to be in touch with realistic skills that can help you to be effective in your job, and that is exactly what this article has been able to achieve.

It has shown and provided proper explanation of the various skills and qualities you need to succeed in the digital strategist job.