An interview with Sherron Washington, the creator of the #YourWorthIsValued campaign. For the entire month of June, she showcased positive images of black men around the world with the goal of altering the negative narrative–learn more!
Insights into the #YourWorthIsValued campaign: An interview with Sherron Washington
I’m excited to have had the pleasure recently of interviewing Sherron Washington. Sherron is the creator of the #YourWorthIsValued campaign. For the entire month of June, she showcased positive images of black men around the world with the goal of altering the negative narrative. I was intrigued to learn more and Sherron was gracious enough to find the time to talk to AMADC
Before we get into our questions, here’s some background about Sherron:
Sherron is a marketing strategist, author, speaker and CEO of the P3 Solution, a full service marketing and communications firm that specializes in providing simple strategy, design, branding, and social media marketing solutions for companies. She has built her firm around the principle of “marketing simple,” which instructs clients to embrace simplified methods to promoting their business. Sherron is also the author of Market Simple: The Blueprint to a One-Page Marketing Plan, Speaker and Writer, sharing expert insight in such places as Black Enterprise, SmartCEO, Social Media Today, Inbound, Pubcon and other platforms around the country.
Now, for our questions:
Sherron, tell us about your professional background. How long have you been in the marketing industry? Please share an example of client work and/or unique insight.
I‘ve been in marketing for about 26 years. I started in the non-profit/association sector and worked in PR, marketing, fundraising, event planning and graphic design. I got a lot of good enrichment in different fields working in an association and working for an association. I have worked for companies like the Bill of Rights Institute, Association of Dentists, International Association of Events and Expositions and the International Association for Venue Managers. I was doing everything, anywhere from doing graphic design to building marketing strategy
I’m a marcom strategic. I’ve owned my business P3 Solutions for about 14 years and I love it, love it, love it. I’m also a marketing and communications professor at Trinity University which I’ve also been doing for 14 years. I’ve taught every communications course you can think of, including Intro to Theory and Practice and Building Marketing Plans for Small Business.
What’s the background behind the #YourWorthIsValued campaign?
There are tons of negative images that pour into society around Black Americans. This year has been pretty trying with all the disasters and tragedies that have been happening around the world. I wanted to create, in my space, a more positive spin to all the negativity and to change the narrative not only around Black men, but also us as a society where we can celebrate people for doing good things.
One way to do this, instead of dealing in civil unrest and racism, is to share my experience. Being a Black woman, it was important to me to get those images out there. There are very strong opinions in some places about what Black excellence looks like, so I wanted to extend my platform as a way to show that Black Men Rock.
What have been the results of the campaign to date (please share the channels that you are sharing it on, you were on TV!, and any stats, etc.), and how is it being received?
It has been received well. To date, we’ve had over 30,000 views of 45 separate posts across three social platforms: LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. On average each post gets anywhere from 20-65 shares in its respective channel.
I was recently interviewed on Good Morning DC on Fox 5. They got whiff of the story and thought it would be great to showcase. We showcased local celebrities and journalists with co-anchor Wisdom Martin who is excited about it (and was also highlighted in the campaign). It is being well received within the community, and also outside the community. We have more than just Black American sharing it, it’s actually across the world. I’m excited about that as well.
You mentioned that your goal for the campaign is to alter the negative narrative. June is not yet over, but are you seeing any indication that this message is making an impact?
I have absolutely seen that it is making a difference in changing the narrative. People are willing to share more. They are increasing how they interact with people and not taking for granted other Black men. Oh, my gosh, I even got examples of people posting, “Thank you for this! My kids are bi-racial. They need examples of great Black men during these scary times.” If anything, it’s opened up dialogue and honesty around what Black excellence looks like. I love the campaign for that. I didn’t expect that to happen, but it did.
What’s next for the campaign?
Great question! For the future, #YourWorthIsValued is being built out to offer programs to help young, at-risk Black Americans to find jobs, get internships, things like that.
As for our immediate “what’s next” for the campaign, for all the month of July I am actually promoting buying Black every day and then promoting on my social platforms. I’m 47 and now for 37 days I have been buying Black and that will continue in the immediate future.
For more information about Sherron and her work, she can be reached at: