These spotlights are opportunities for you to get to know some individuals who were recommended to me for the article I wrote for Mashable, 4 Essential Traits for Social Media Success in Your Career. The purpose of my project, detailed here, is to profile some social media professionals to keep an eye on in the coming year.
Spotlight: Amanda MooneyTitle: Senior Social Media Strategist
Employer: Edelman
Who paid it forward: Steve Rubel
What Steve had to say about Amanda: “Amanda is an astute trendwatcher and uses these insights to advise some of the biggest companies in the world, all at a very young age.”
Amanda is a graduate of Emerson College in Boston. She earned her degree in Integrated Marketing and has worked in roles utilizing social technologies from the very start of her professional career. She joined Edelman in 2008 and has quickly made a name for herself there. Currently she works as a Senior Social Media Strategist supporting account teams in digital practice. She consults with clients about what people are saying about their brand and helps keep them culturally relevant. Amanda also blogs at We Are The Digital Kids.
How college impacted her interest in social media: Emerson did a great job of making social media part of the curriculum from the start. During her sophomore year, Amanda went to a PRSSA conference where Richard Edelman was speaking on digital and how it is changing business in general, let alone PR. For next two years she immersed herself in learning about digital and how it could change a company’s daily activities. During this time, she continued to hear about social media from professors and business speakers at school. She learned that getting involved in this world would give her the opportunity to be at forefront of a company and still grow and learn on a daily basis.
How making personal connections impacted Amanda’s career: When Amanda first started blogging, Rick Murray, President of Edelman Digital, reached out to her via Twitter. He proved that he is a digital native in the sense that he plays and lives in the space and it is as much a part of his life as it is his work. Rick gave Amanda encouragement to speak up in meetings and do the same things online. As well, Amanda reached out to Richard Edelman right before she went to the PRSSA conference and he responded and stayed in touch while she completed school. He has continued to be supportive of her whole career with Edelman.
Some of Amanda’s thoughts on social media and GenY: Amanda believes there is a misconception that young ‘’digital kids” should be advising companies and digital experts from the start. She says that digital kids come in all age ranges – not just GenY. Digital native status is more dependent on how one lives their life as opposed to when one was born.
Where Amanda sees social media going in the future: One of the most exciting things for Amanda is seeing how what’s happening in digital is not just a skin companies can put on their current activity – it has to be engrained in traditional business operations. Companies will have to adjust many processes to adapt to how social media and digital have changed how business is done. She gives an example of Dell and how they have gotten into social media from a campaign standpoint, but more importantly that they are changing customer service in a radical way by making customers feel they are truly collaborating with the company. She says that 800 numbers are not as important any more for younger generations; they want to be able to reach customer service on Twitter , Facebook, and so forth. Amanda believes that companies need to pay attention to these desires in order to stay relevant and that we will see many more companies embracing this method of outreach in the coming months.
Connect with Amanda on:
