We don't need a rebrand. We need a redesign

When I graduated from Brock University in 2006, social media wasn't a profession. In fact, it barely felt like an industry. Facebook had only recently become available beyond college campuses, Twitter was just launching and LinkedIn was still finding its footing. We weren't talking about digital communications careers yet. We were experimenting with new ways to communicate.

A few years later, after completing graduate studies and entering the workforce, I found myself working in a field that seemed to reinvent itself every few months.

None of us had a roadmap.

Looking back, I realize I was better prepared than I ever understood.

At Brock, I had the privilege of studying under Professor Barry Joe through several courses on computer-mediated communication. At the time, I thought I was learning about technology. Now I think I was learning something much bigger.

Barry wasn't teaching us specific platforms. He was teaching us how technology changes the way people communicate. The platforms were simply today's examples, but the lesson was timeless.

That way of thinking quietly became the foundation of my career.

By the time I entered digital communications professionally in 2011, Facebook pages were exploding, organizations were trying to figure out social media and, apparently, knowing how to create one qualified me as the expert.

The bar was... different back then.

We were building the profession while doing the job

I never set out to become "the social media person." I thought I was becoming a communicator who happened to work in digital spaces. Those aren't quite the same thing.

I wasn't fascinated by platforms. I was fascinated by what they meant for communication. That curiosity became my compass.

Social media became content strategy. Content strategy led to photography. Photography led to video. Video led to analytics. Then governance, accessibility, training, crisis communications, marketing automation and now AI.

The interesting part is that none of those skills replaced the ones before them. They accumulated.

The job kept expanding because communication itself kept changing.

And it happened so gradually that most of us barely noticed we were helping build an entirely new profession.

It happened one conversation at a time.

"Can you also write the strategy?"

"Can you also take the photos?"

"Can you also train everyone?"

"Can you also standardize our accounts?"

"Can you also look into AI?"

Before long, many of us weren't just managing social media. We had quietly become the people organizations turned to whenever communication intersected with new technology.

My camera wasn't really about photography

Around 2012, it became obvious that social media needed better visuals.

No one handed me a camera. No one sent me to training. No one even acknowledged that photography had quietly become part of the role.

I asked for a camera for Christmas because I needed one for work. My parents chose the same model they'd taken on vacation after seeing how beautifully it captured their trip.

It turned out there was a slight difference between photographing flowers in daylight and keynote speakers in dimly lit ballrooms.

Google's advice was refreshingly honest: "You need a different camera."

So I went to Shoppers Drug Mart, redeemed a pile of Optimum points and bought my first Canon Rebel T3.

I still own it. In fact, I pulled it out this week to photograph my son's baseball team.

I still don't know what half the buttons do and honestly, that's kind of the point.

I never wanted to become a photographer. I became a communicator who needed photography.

That same pattern repeated itself throughout my career. Photography became video. Video became Adobe Premiere. Premiere became my co-op students patiently teaching me production while I contributed the storytelling.

Then, just as many of us felt we'd finally caught up ... AI arrived.

Looking back, I wasn't chasing trends, I was following the way people communicate.

The more I've reflected on my own career, the more I've realized it wasn't unusual.

Nearly every digital communicator I know has a version of this story. The skills are different. The pattern is remarkably similar.

We didn't wake up one morning and decide to become photographers, governance leads, accessibility specialists or AI advisors.

We became those things because communication kept changing and we changed with it.

Somewhere along the way, the work outgrew the role

Last year, I wrote that social media professionals needed a rebrand.

I still believe our titles struggle to reflect the complexity of modern communications work.

But the more I've reflected on my own career, and listened to the stories of others, the more I've realized titles are only part of the problem.

Consider the title Social Media Manager.

In one organization, that might describe someone creating content, scheduling posts and managing a community.

In another, it might describe someone leading enterprise governance, advising executives, managing crises, overseeing AI adoption and shaping organizational strategy.

Same title. Completely different scope.

At the same time, I've met Communications Officers and Specialists whose responsibilities have evolved far beyond what those titles traditionally implied.

The issue isn't that one title is better than another.

It's that we've never really developed a consistent framework for a profession that matured remarkably quickly.

In most organizations, titles communicate two things:

• What you do.

• Where you sit within the organization.

Digital communications often asks one title to do both and neither particularly well.

We've used manager to describe a platform, while many organizations use manager to describe leadership, authority and organizational responsibility.

We've expanded responsibilities without consistently expanding authority.

We've broadened scope without intentionally redefining the role. We've built career paths that often depend more on organizational history than professional maturity.

That's why I no longer think this is simply a branding problem.

It's an organizational design problem.

Designing what's next

I don't think there's one perfect framework. Nor do I think every organization should be structured the same way; but I do think it's time we start asking different questions.

What capabilities actually belong together?

What distinguishes a practitioner from a specialist? A specialist from a strategist? A strategist from a leader?

How should titles communicate both expertise and organizational responsibility?

How do we create career paths that reflect the profession we've actually become instead of the one we inherited fifteen years ago?

Those are redesign questions, not rebrand questions.

Maybe redesign means separating platform expertise from leadership titles. Maybe it means competency frameworks that recognize communications as a profession instead of a collection of tactical skills. Maybe it means career paths that reflect increasing strategic influence, not simply years of experience or the number of platforms someone manages.

I'm less interested in prescribing the solution than I am in changing the conversation, because the first step in redesigning anything is acknowledging that it was never intentionally designed in the first place.

The profession has matured. It's time our organizations caught up.

The next generation deserves more than what we inherited

Looking back, I think my generation of digital communicators had a unique experience. We entered the profession while it was still taking shape. We learned alongside our organizations because nobody had all the answers.

Together, we built strategies, governance, systems, standards and best practices. We didn't just adopt new technology, we helped organizations understand what it meant, how to use it responsibly and how to communicate effectively in a digital world.

I'm proud of that work.

Still too often, our profession is still treated as though it's new. As though anyone can do it because everyone uses social media. As though the strategic thinking behind the work is less valuable than the tools themselves.

It isn't.

Communications has always been a profession. Digital communications is no different.

The next generation shouldn't have to spend another fifteen years proving that.

They deserve clearer career paths, stronger professional recognition and roles intentionally designed for the work we now know they require.

Because when a profession evolves faster than the organizations that employ it, eventually the work and the role stop matching.

I think we've reached that point.

We don't need a rebrand.

We need a redesign.