One of my newest Twitter friends, Sheldon a.k.a. @40deuce, turned me on to this #happo thing that’s happening today. HAPPO is an acronym for Help A P.R. Pro Out, but it seems like it’s expanded to include a wide range of discussions about jobs and careers in the Social Media field.

I have been thinking about doing a blog post about the kind of job I am interested in, so HAPPO Day seems like a good time to do it.

The Question in the title of this post – “What is it that you do?” – is one that I am asked by almost everyone who has followed me on Twitter, taken a look at my blog, watched some of my videos, read my comics, seen me perform, and come away from it with their head spinning.

Yes, I have my creative vision expressed in many different arenas but my singular talent is making things pizzazzy…

…And I want to help make your things pizzazzy.

Some people think that my style is in-your-face, but anyone who knows me and gets what I’m about knows that it’s sincere. What I do is I take a flair for the visual, an eye for talent, and an assessment of what you’re doing right already, and I mix them together to create something fun and marketable. Or as I explain in one of my rap songs: “I take something old and something new and I turn it into something timeless.”

I guess you could say that what I’m best at is Brand Development. Whether you’re just starting out or you’re established and you want to take it to the next level, you can tell me where you want to go, and I can tell you what details you need to have in place and what marks you need to hit in order to get there, and whatever else goes on around that is either a bonus or doesn’t matter.

Here are some case studies:

I’ve worked with a lot of bands, but I want to single out The Golden Dogs because I’ve done a lot of different things for different bands, and done all of them for The Golden Dogs. I helped them add an additional level of theatricality to their image and stage presenation (costuming, props, stage dressing, even song selection) and developed the concept for their CD release party and major live showcases (paying attention to every detail of the experience from the time someone walks in the door, not just what’s on the stage). Within the year, they had a major label deal with distribution through Universal Music, were signed to the biggest booking agency in North America, and the next year they were touring Canada and the U.S. with multi-platinum acts.

Canada’s longest-running comedy/variety TV show, Ed’s Night Party, was stuck in a creative rut and wanted to re-invigorate the brand. I came up with the idea to do a spin-off comic book, re-do the show’s website and visual identity around it, use that as the vehicle to market the show and characters to the comics & pop culture fandom crowd, and use blogging and Social Media to bring people into the world of the show. That got them a whole new following, the show went on to greater heights in the ratings domestically, and expanded to the US on G4TV and RipeTV.

Right now I’m working with Princess Superstar. We’ve only just started working together, but with her track record and brand recognition, there is huge opportunity to do some really cool stuff with social media and online content distribution.

(If you want to know more about the strategies involved in the above examples, email me – seanward.net AT gmail.com – I’d love to get into it with you.)

These are just a few examples of the kind of advice I give to people all the time, and the things that I love to help people with.

There’s only so much room here so I haven’t been able to get into as much detail as I would like, let alone talk about my own projects, building a brand literally from a street corner hustle into a TV development deal.

In all of these cases, I predicted how things were going to go. I told them what marks to hit to reach their goals, and that reality manifested in proportion to how much of my advice they took. And in instances where they didn’t take my advice, what happened was exactly what I warned them would happen when I explained why the benchmarks we set were so important. This is what I do; I figure out how to position you as a superstar, create or modify the product so that it backs up the talk, and get the conversation about it happening.

Despite my reputation as a shameless self-promoter, I don’t feel like I’m good at selling myself. I try to stay a bit humble, keep busy, and make fun stuff. I keep busy making comics and planning shows and cooking up marketing schemes, and these sorts of opportunities have flowed naturally from the people I meet and scenes I encounter (God bless the Internet and Social Media!) I’ve always struggled with how to articulate what it is that I do, what I’m good at, and why people should hire me, but for this #happo post I figured now is the time to put it all on the table.

If you read this, I hope you’ll get in touch.  I would love to hear about what what you’ve got on the go, what you’re up to, and where you want to go with it. And maybe I can help you build a platform on which your inner superstar will shine…

seanward.net (at) gmail (dot) com

twitter: @seanward

facebook: seanwardsuperparty

Tags: accomplishments, adventures, life, me, promo, work