This week, I got to learn from Kayla Stuckart, a strategic communications leader, who gave insights on the freelancing world and her overall career. She goes over the challenges in her career, but also learned many things along the way that still stick with her today.

Guest Speaker: Kayla Stuckart

As a freelancer, it can create challenges which results in more effort, and time to overcome those obstacles. Freelancing allows for exploring different types of projects but at the same time can create inconsistent work schedules and can be difficult when managing multiple clients.  In the world of freelancing, networking is key to finding opportunities but it is also essential to balance. Kayla also mentions something that reminds me of Ebony’s career that I learned about last week. Kayla learned early on that networking can lead to bigger opportunities in the future which coincides with Ebony’s career. Kayla noted that transparency and professionalism is important when working with brands which in turn creates a good relationship between your clients.  

Kayla also mentions that while she is working Canva is her go-to platform. She highlights how it is simple to make projects on-the-fly and with the templates that she is able to use templates to make high quality visuals. She also talks about how she uses ChatGPT in her planning process for brainstorming ideas or drafting content. As a media student, I have used Adobe programs constantly but I may consider using Canva for simple graphics that I need to create quickly. Overall, I will look to use tools like Canva and ChatGPT to work smarter and efficiently with the resources that I am given.

As Kayla worked a lot in communications, she also noted the demographics of social media. During the planning stage for social media campaigns, one of the main decisions would be the platform. She points out that the audience on each platform behaves differently and it is crucial to understand how they will react to your content. So when creating content for social media, you must adapt to the platform and the demographic.

Overall Reflection

With tools like Canva and ChatGPT, it may be more efficient working with these tools for certain projects due to time constraints. It also helps to know your audience and to adapt your content to the platform and the audience all together. Overall, Kayla has taught me a lot about the world of freelancing and communications but also things that she has learned throughout her career.