Franziska Kissling, MA MA

Job title: Content strategy officer
Company: Pro Natura
I work in: Basel, Switzerland
I have been working here since: November 2016. Before my position as responsible for content strategy I was 2 years in web editorial / social media.
My contact:

• https://franziskakissling.ch/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/franziskakissling/

What I do:

I continue to develop and implement the content strategy I developed in my master’s program within the company. The new communication planning introduced at the beginning of my position with tools like SharePoint, Teams and OneNote quickly led to more sharing within the team and brought more transparency and understanding of the questions and needs of the communication department. Now that this has become embedded in the organization, the following key areas from content strategy are on my agenda in 2021:

• Governance: How can we make our diverse concepts, standards and guidelines intuitively discoverable and close gaps?
• Promoting exchange: How can we better promote our department’s services within the association? In 2020, I organized a webinar series with small 45-minute inputs, which met with great interest from the decentralized sections and centres.
• Better anchoring of visualized processes in communication: How long does content production take and what questions need to be answered?
• Evaluating content objectives and further developing the measurability of content impact across channels.

Why I love my job:

At Pro Natura, I enjoy a lot of freedom in realizing projects that are important from my point of view, and I can count on wonderful, inspiring people to work with. Both are very important to me in transforming content strategy from what used to be a “paper tiger” into lived everyday life.

Important skills in my job:

Like people and find pragmatic solutions! There are thousands of strategies and concepts – but in the end they have to be implemented. It’s not always just reaching for the stars that counts, but also the hike up to the summit, step by step. And without enthusiastic comrades-in-arms, you don’t even have to get your hiking boots out of the basement… The most important place is therefore the coffee machine and the exchange of ideas during so-called “breaks”, which often turn into good ideas and work ;-).

My biggest success in my career so far:

The creation of this new position and the presentation of the content strategy to the Pro Natura management.

I learned this in my studies for my professional life:

Studying perfectly filled my backpack with different methods and tools. It also helped me a lot to complete my studies while working and to think through projects together with fellow students. That saved me a lot of extra work! And last but not least, the night shifts also promoted the “go ahead and get going” attitude. You can talk about it for hours, complain about your homework, or simply hit the keys according to the Pareto principle. That is also appreciated in professional life.

The job opportunities in my area:

I find that difficult to gauge. I suspect in larger communications departments there is almost always a need for a “hub position” like mine. But whether they are advertised that way is the other question. Very often I see job ads that confuse content strategy with communications planning or content management, that is, too little focus on processes, governance, or even personas and customer journey. Some international companies have created corresponding positions – I think this is gradually catching on.

That’s how I got my job:

I was allowed to earn my position myself. After a retirement, job percentages became available – and after revising the profile, I knew I really wanted this job.

Me about my job:

For me, one of the best jobs, which fits perfectly with what I’m interested in and excited about at the moment.