Industry Insights: Interview with Beth Jones, a Media and Communication Professional

For this assignment, I interviewed Beth Jones, who currently works as an internal communications specialist at Garmin. She also has experience with social media management, content writing, marketing, and communications from her time working with K-State Olathe. I chose to interview her because her background connects really closely to the type of work I am interested in, especially social media, content creation, writing, and strategic communication.

Beth’s career path started with writing. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English and later went back to earn her master’s degree in English. When she graduated from college in 2008, social media management was not really a career path in the way it is today. She said that “social media manager” was not even a common job title at the time, so she did not originally know her career would move in that direction.

Instead, she started out by creating different kinds of content. She worked on websites, articles, blogs, and other content marketing projects for different companies. Over time, some of that work started to include writing social media posts. Because of that, she built experience writing for different platforms and audiences. She explained that writing for a blog is different from writing for social media because each platform has its own purpose, style, and way of getting people to engage.

One important part of her career was working at K-State Olathe. She said they were originally interested in her because of her blogging background, but the role eventually became more focused on social media management. Her writing experience ended up translating well into that work, which showed me how valuable strong writing skills are in almost any communication role.

At K-State Olathe, Beth’s social media work included creating graphics, writing posts, taking photos at campus events, drafting content, and getting materials approved before they were published. She also wrote news stories, blog posts, and emails, which allowed her to reuse and adjust content for different platforms. For example, one blog post could become social media content, an email, or another type of promotional material.

When I asked about important skills, she talked a lot about flexibility and patience. She explained that people often have strong opinions about graphics, posts, and messaging, but sometimes they do not know exactly how to explain what they want. In those situations, a communicator has to be able to listen, understand what someone is trying to say, and turn that into something useful. She joked that part of the job can feel like being a therapist, but I understood what she meant. People skills are a huge part of communication work.

One of the biggest trends Beth mentioned was artificial intelligence. She said AI is a major topic right now because many organizations are still figuring out if they want to use it and, if they do, how they want to use it. Tools like Canva and HubSpot are already adding AI features, so communication professionals have to pay attention to how these tools are changing the field.

At the same time, she said the main goal of social media has stayed pretty much the same. Even though platforms, trends, and tools change, the goal is still to create good content that people want to engage with. Strong content should make people feel something or encourage them to take action. I thought that was a really helpful reminder because it is easy to get caught up in trends, but the purpose behind the work still matters most.

Beth’s biggest advice was to keep reading and learning about trends in social media and content development. She also recommended talking to other creators, building connections, and always paying attention to new ideas. She said that even scrolling on social media in your personal life can be useful because you might notice a trend and think about how it could apply to your own work.

This interview helped me see how much of communication work is a mix of creativity, strategy, and patience. I am currently working as an intern for a political campaign and helping with social media, so a lot of what she said connected to what I am already experiencing. I especially related to the part about being careful with messaging and making sure content is thoughtful before it is posted.

I also liked hearing that her career path was not perfectly planned from the beginning. She started with writing, and that opened doors into blogging, social media, marketing, and internal communications. That was encouraging because I am also interested in several areas, including writing, design, social media, and strategy. Her experience showed me that those skills can work together and lead to different opportunities.

Overall, this interview gave me a better understanding of what it is like to work in media and communication. My biggest takeaways were that strong writing, flexibility, patience, and curiosity are all important skills in this field. The tools and platforms may keep changing, but communication is still about creating clear, meaningful content that connects with people.