Social media is strongest when it gives the audience a feeling they’ve never had. It’s the moment when you pull back the curtain: sharing personality, a glimpse behind the scenes, or a first-person experience.

At The Drive, our staff drive the world’s fastest and most unique automobiles on a daily basis. A luxury car’s arrival at the office, or a lap around the track, became the norm for our team, yet our audience may never have the opportunity to see one of these machines, let alone drive one.

I crafted a social media strategy designed around these moments, crafted for our specific audience: using every platform at our disposal, I wanted to bring the audience along for the ride. These experiential, live videos began with just an iPhone but grew into elaborate mobile studio with wireless lav microphones, a mobile mixer, lenses, stabilizers and windshield mounts.

As a one-man team, I became a strategist-turned-mobile producer, broadcasting live video from a New York-to-Detroit Tesla drive, from the passenger seat of a Porsche Cayman GT4 looping Thunderhill Raceway Park at 170 MPH, and on countless test drives. I even produced a live, mobile interview with Jay Leno.

As Facebook Live came to the forefront of the social media landscape, The Drive, less than a year old, became a leader within Time Inc., responsible for creating 15 experiential videos with over 150 minutes of live video each month. The Drive was ranked as a “Tier 1” publication within Time Inc., sharing the stage with the corporation's most established brands: People, Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated and TIME.

Now more than ever, engagement is key. If audiences don’t engage with content, the post’s reach stalls. At Connecticut College, we found a way to break through the clutter:

Connecticut College became the first educational institution to publish custom-crafted marketing materials on BuzzFeed, a project I initiated as the College’s social media strategist. The decision experiment as a BuzzFeed Contributor (later, as a “Brand Publisher”) was two-fold: At the time, Facebook’s algorithm was prioritizing links from established publications like BuzzFeed and the New York Times, so it was clear that a buzzfeed.com link would perform better than a conncoll.edu one.

More importantly, creating marketing content on BuzzFeed allowed the College to speak to its audience in a different way, using a new tone. We could share content that may previously not have been formal enough for the .edu homepage, and we could create more compelling, visually exciting stories. The engagement scores for these posts speak for themselves: the College’s BuzzFeed content outperformed even the most interesting on-site content, resonating with the prospective, current student, alumni and parent constituencies.

As Connecticut College's Social Media Strategist, I create, curate and oversee all content on the College's institutional social media channels. Explore example posts from live events, see the numerous and on-the-fly images I've created for our community, and learn about some of the more interesting, unexpected and notable social media moments I've tacked.

Connecticut College became the first educational institution to publish custom-crafted marketing materials on BuzzFeed, a project I initiated as the College’s social media strategist. The decision experiment as a BuzzFeed Contributor (later, as a “Brand Publisher”) was two-fold: it allowed us content and tone flexibility, and also took advantage of the URLs that Facebook’s algorithm would prioritize. 

The engagement scores for these posts speak for themselves: the College’s BuzzFeed content outperformed even the most interesting on-site content, resonating with the prospective, current student, alumni and parent constituencies.

At The Drive, I was responsible for the publication's foray into Facebook Live video. We were driving fast, beautiful cars that our audience dreamed of, but for many, they would never experience in real life. The goal for our videos was simple: give our audience the first-person experience. Within two months of starting live video efforts, The Drive was ranked as a “Tier 1” publication within Time Inc., sharing the stage with the corporation's most established brands: People, Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated and TIME, and was responsible for creating 15 experiential videos with over 150 minutes of live video each month. 

My work on video predates The drive. While Social Media Strategist at Connecticut College, I was been involved with the strategic planning for a number of video projects. My roles varied; in some cases, I was part of a team that helped to create a video's vision before production was handed off to an outside contractor. In other cases, I served as director and producer, deciding how the video should be edited together. 

As a student, I had the opportunity to develop visual brands for a number of different projects and campaigns. These designs feature simple, flat design and clean typography and were applied online, in print and in outdoor settings.

Building Stories: Cummings Arts Center, my senior project for the Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology, is  a documentary exploring Cummings Arts Center’s history, people and secrets, featuring rare photos, 3D models, and interviews. A historical documentary about such a striking and massive building warranted an equally unique and impressive display: the building’s own façade.