Team Epic Senior Digital Strategist Caity Kauffman (@caitykauffman) did not plan on making a career in social media. After growing up around her parent's radio station, she had her eyes set on becoming a journalist because she "wanted to be part of the media conversation." But as social media began to grow during her college years, Kauffman discovered, "I don't need to be a journalist to be part of the conversation."
Becoming interested in social media:
When I entered college, social media wasn’t something you could major in and it wasn’t something people really talked about. It really started to get big as I was about to graduate. People began to talk about it, but nobody knew how it worked. I saw an opportunity there. Now you see non-TV reporters referencing tweets in their stories. A lot of people don’t understand the ecosystem of social, but I saw an opportunity. It’s really become an extension of who I am rather than something that I do.
Staying ahead of the social media curve:
I’m always telling my staff we need to practice what we preach and we need to be constantly involved in social. I also surround myself with people who are smart in the business. We’re always having a conversation of, ‘Hey I saw this tweet,’ ‘I saw this post,’ ‘How’s it working for you?’ You only know what works for you and every brand and industry is different. It’s always a learning process.
Best social media advice:
Always know what your objectives are. I believe a lot of people are on social media because they think, ‘Everyone’s here; we need to be here, too.’ You have to work backwards when you are building a social media strategy. Figure out where you want to be and figure out how you want to get there rather than just jumping on board.
Biggest challenge of social media:
The evolution of it. It moves very quickly. There’s so much of it that’s uncharted. I was reading a story about the legal ramifications of joke-stealing on Twitter. The space is so far ahead of our legal system, which is becoming a problem. The legal system needs to catch up to this industry. The rules change on you every day, and that’s what you have to stay on top of.
Balancing PR function with not being robotic:
One thing I’m probably in the minority in feeling is that social media used to be strictly organic where it wasn’t an advertising channel. It almost seemed like free marketing; brands were all over it. Recently, Facebook has made it more difficult for marketers to reach people without paying. It has become more pay-for-play. I for one like that aspect because it’s a separation of church and state. You can pay to get your brand messages out to the right people, to the fans who need to see them, to have more meaningful marketing messages and have higher conversion rates. Then you can leave your organic messaging to be the fun stuff, to be the fun, cool, engaging content.
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