5 Steps to Build a Creative Digital Team at an Agency

In the mad rush of digital communication, creativity is the clutter breaker. An idea, big or small, stays with the audience only if executed creatively. With augmented reality and digital videos becoming easier to generate, more and more people are using these tools in innovative ways to hook the audience to their communication. Thus, it becomes very important that as a team every member brings about some new ideas to the table. But creative thinking is not something we can start doing at a flick of a button. It needs careful planning and opportunity identification. We share with you, five basic steps that can help in building creative thinking your team.

1. Identify each member’s interest area and allocate them the responsibility to explore that field

Very often, creativity is killed by trying to force people to think in a particular manner or in a particular domain. Many a times, the team may simply not be interested in the topic and hence would not be able to think innovation. On the other hand, if they are encouraged to think in the sphere they are interested in, they can explore a lot more. In digital communication, the ideas are not topic centric hence this route will work across the board.

2. Recruitment should enable creative growth

Like mentioned in the previous point, not all of us would be interested in all the topics, hence, one good way of getting a plethora of topics covered is to recruit people from a varied background. This will not only enable the team’s experience to widen but also bring in a fresh new look thoughts to the discussion table.

3. Team brainstorming

Brainstorming has always been an aspect of agency life and functioning. Team members huddled in a smoke filled room trying to crack the next big idea is commonplace. But what does happen at times is a lot of times, only a select few are involved. This is something that can be changed. A big brainstorming session with all team members can be more productive than a select few.

This stems from the fact that all of us have a unique social media/digital experience. Also, the content that we consume is very different. Hence, which idea may come from whose engagement is something we never know? It is always good to have people in the brainstorming. They may not contribute, but they will only learn with experience and hence be a better ideator for a future brainstorming. Also, there are times when in search of big ideas we miss the simple ideas that can be executed innovatively. Sometimes having people who may not be that well versed with technology can suggest a route which would be the best clutter breaking option. Thus, in the game of brainstorming, the more the merrier actually holds true.

4. Campaign Evaluation

Make it a habit to sit and review all interesting campaigns that you come across. A weekly review of all that was trending could be a great way of gauging the benchmark. Ask your team members, again as per interest, to pick up one campaign that they were really impressed with and what was the key element of the campaign that worked. This not only helps the agency in competition mapping but also exposes the team to the ideas that have made a mark, helping them to improve their understanding and hence the thinking capacity.

5. Platform Usage

One cannot be creative in any field until unless one experiences it. This is very true on digital platforms. Until unless the nature of the platform is not understood, ideas will never come through. If the team doesn’t know that the Snapchat images disappear after some time, a flash sale idea will never occur to them. Hence, it is very important that the team spends some time on all platform understanding the essence and nature of each one of them to be able to think how best a particular platform can be used. Oh and yes, it is not a waste of time.

A team cannot be changed in to a creative thinking unit overnight. It would need constant collaboration and inventions. The above five steps are just a starting point. Each team can and should build their own new ways of ideating. This will not only keep the process alive and interesting, but also build a bond amongst the team members.