Marketing Happy Hour - Brand Safety and Social Media | C.J. Johnson of Tampa International Airport (TPA)

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

This week, Erica and Cassie catch up with fellow Tampa resident C.J. Johnson, Communications Specialist at Tampa International Airport, and chat through the current strategies their team is utilizing on social to interact with their passengers. In this episode, C.J. provides a unique perspective on the intersection of brand safety and social media and shares TPA's approach to balancing their fun, "unhinged" brand voice with the seriousness and security requirements of an airport. Here's a peek at what we cover in this episode: [00:04:30] - C.J. shares his background in social media, his venture to consulting and dabbling in travel influencing, and walks us through his decision making in joining the team at TPA to run their social media channels. [00:09:20] - C.J. reveals the current social strategies for each platform that TPA is utilizing (Facebook being their largest audience) and shares what the main goals and KPIs are that they look at as an airport. C.J. explains how they're interacting with passengers and the public on social by actively listening to feedback and conversations, acting as a first response team and touchpoint for fielding questions. He also gives us a peek into some fun brand moments, like going viral for starting "beef" with other airports and involving the community and city of Tampa in unique ways. [00:23:19] - C.J. shares how TPA protects brand safety on social, and how the social team manages urgent requests and updates. [00:26:26] - C.J. uncovers his predictions for the future of social media and shares an inside look at their viral flamingo naming contest. Grab a drink and listen in to this week's Marketing Happy Hour conversation! ----- Other episodes you'll enjoy if you enjoyed C.J.'s episode: Creating Excellent Audience Experiences on Social | Becca Hidalgo of Hilton Grand Vacations How to Build Brand Loyalty | Kara Salazar of Southwest Airlines Top Social Media Tips by Platform | Bri Reynolds of Lyft ____ Say hi! DM us on Instagram and share your favorite moments from this episode - we can't wait to hear from you! NEW! Join our MHH Insiders group to connect with Millennial and Gen Z marketing professionals around the world! ⁠⁠Get the latest from MHH, straight to your inbox: Join our email list!⁠⁠ Connect with C.J. on LinkedIn | Instagram Check out Tampa International Airport's Social: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn Connect with Co-Host Erica: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Co-Host Cassie: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow MHH on Social: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠ New to Marketing Happy Hour (or just want more)? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Download our Marketing Happy Hour Starter Kit⁠⁠ This podcast is an MHH Media production. ⁠⁠Learn more about MHH Media!⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Interested in starting your own podcast? Grab our Podcast Launch Strategy Guide here.⁠

you're listening to the marketing happy hour podcast where we discuss career and industry insights with our peers in marketing we're here to talk about it all like the ups and downs of working in social media how to build authentic relationships in the influencer and pr space managing a nine-to-five and a side hustle at the same time, how to be productive in your life and career without losing your sanity, and more. Ultimately, we're here to build a community with you because we're all trying to navigate the world of marketing together. Are you ready? Grab your favorite drink and join your hosts, Cassie and Erica, for this week's episode.

Welcome back to another week of Marketing Happy Hour. Today, we're joined by CJ Johnson of Tampa International Airport, named the number one large airport in 2022 by J.D. Power. Not to gush over it too much, but it is our absolute favorite spot to travel in and out of. On the marketing side, they're known for their viral social media posts, which CJ is behind. In this episode, we hear the inside scoop of his role in social for the airport, how he brainstorms for creative ideas, and how his team has defined the brand's voice across channels, and tips for monitoring social media KPIs. This is a fantastic episode that I know you'll love. So buckle up, grab your favorite drink, and let's take off. Hey, CJ, how are you? I am great. And I'm just so excited to be here with both of you. Can't wait to talk more about social media and everything. But yeah, I'm just thrilled. Awesome. We're excited to have you.

We've been talking about this for a long time, Cassie and I, we were like, we have to get whoever is behind the account on our show. Then we found you and reached out. So we're so happy that you're joining us today. But before we get started, I do have an important question for you that we always ask our guests. And that is what is in your glass this afternoon? It is marketing happy hour after all. Oh, you're right. Is it lame that I just drink a lot of water? Like usually during, I'm like a gallon a day kind of a guy, and I'm always running from

my desk to the bathroom and back, but I'm always like chugging a bottle of water or two. And if I'm feeling, yeah, no, it is. Apparently, for your skin, it's. I apparently, you know, for your skin, it's great. Apparently it's great for all kinds of health reasons. So they say, but, uh, I, I'm honestly though a real sucker for a solid Coke, like not a diet Coke, not Coke zero. Like I want the full sugar, the full carbs, all that stuff. So, um, if I'm really going to treat myself on a Friday night or a Thursday night, a Coke, it is. I love that. I grew up on just drinking water.

I never had like pop or soda. I'm from Michigan. So I say pop, but everyone down here says soda. I grew up in the Midwest and it's pop. Everything's pop. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Cassie did too. She grew up in Ohio. I think it's pop up there, but anyway, so I'm only ever been a water girly and never drink pop or anything, but sometimes I do like a good fountain Coke, I would say, but I'm not sitting on anything right now. There's just something crispy about it. And like you get it in a nice cold glass with some ice and you just said, there's just something special about it. So yeah. Agreed. Agreed. This is seriously going to be an ad for for coke we'll just snip this out and send it to them but i actually taylor switch was in town in tampa a few weeks ago and i went to mcdonald's

afterwards and had a fountain coke and it changed my life and now i'm obsessed so i agree i completely agree um but i have actually today a non-alcoholic beer i'm trying which which is very different for me, uh, from it's called mango cart and it's really good. And I also have water because you got to be hydrated, but Erica, you just have water today too. Yeah. Water and tea, but that's per usual. Hey, great. We love it. We love it. It's large emotional support water bottle that kind of just goes everywhere. I go. So everybody needs one of those. Yeah, everybody does for sure. We all have one. Well, CJ, like Erica said, oh my gosh, beyond excited. We are huge fans. I think if you live in Tampa, or even if you don't, and you just know about Tampa airport, you probably are aware of the iconic social media presence that you guys have.

And you are of course behind that. So we're excited to talk about that. But first, give us a little rundown on your career. How did you get to where you are right now? Yeah, great question. So what brought me from the Midwest to Tampa Bay was college. I actually came down here for undergrad. I went to a small private school over in Clearwater and studied IT. Found out that, man, I really hate programming. I really hate database design, but ooh, marketing, this is interesting. So I ended up getting my master's in social media from UF, one of the first master's programs of its kind. And I started doing like some consulting work or I had done some consulting work in the past and worked for a nonprofit for a few years. I finally eventually decided to just quit like my full-time job and

start my own consulting business. And, you know, that's a real leap to go from having the comforts of, you know, healthcare and all those things built in to doing something on your own. But it was such a rewarding adventure for me and started doing consulting and, you know, just helping businesses, individuals with their online presence. I knew someone here at the Tampa airport and they reached out and they're like, Hey, have you heard about this job? That's opening to help do the social media at the airport, applied for it. And I really, the rest is history as far as that. But even before I worked here, I had done a lot of social media influencing. So the airport had actually brought me in to help raise awareness

about some of the things going on here at the airport. That's kind of how I got connected to TPA, but I've worked with some clothing companies. I still, to this day, work with a resort chain in the Caribbean and they fly me down to do stuff with their hotel. And it's like the best day. I was like, I'm going on vacation and they're paying for it. So it's the, I love doing those types of things, but I'm full-time here at TPA day-to-day running social community management, all those pieces. So that's a little bit about my, my career at this point. Yeah, absolutely. What do you feel like got you comfortable to make that leap into consulting initially before you landed at TPA? Because

like you said, it can be kind of scary, uh, leaving stability, having health insurance built in. There's a lot of variables when it goes to kind of doing your own thing. So what was that like? Cause I know we have a lot of listeners who are thinking about doing that. They're not really quite sure where to start, but what was that kind of catalyst that pushed you to make that decision? Well, you know, I, I had thought about doing it for a while and the allure of being your own boss is pretty strong. And so I thought I'd give it a try. You know, there's there were the job market is full of jobs right now. And so if it failed and I fell flat on my face, I could at least say I gave it a shot, you know, and and so I decided to give it a shot and it took off and I'm super thankful for that. And I think if you're someone that wants to leave your full-time job and start doing consulting, you've really got to be a dedicated. You've got to be great at routine and be, you really need to be good at connecting with people and networking with people because that's probably where you're going to get

your first gigs are from people, you know, or from people who they know. So I'd say before you make the leap, you know, maybe have a little bit in savings as well to make sure that you've got something to live off of for a while, or be even consider doing a part-time job that will, is, is very freeing for you to be able to do your, your consulting gig more full-time. So that'd be the advice that I'd have for people who are consulting or thinking about doing consulting full-time. Yeah. Well, and then with that too, you know, now you're working a full-time job, but as you said, you are doing a lot of influencing on the side, you're building a brand for yourself. So how do you juggle that and make sure you are doing the best that you can do

for your brand partners and building your presence and just allow yourself to have the mental space for all of these endeavors? Well, really my mental space is pretty much is, is occupied by TPA. Like this is my full-time job now. And this is really what I focus all of my time, effort, and energy onto. Um, I love to travel. That's my hobby. And so I have a clothing company that when I go on trips, I give them a shout and tell them, Hey, if you want to send some clothes my way while I'm on this trip and on my own free time, I'd be glad to post about your stuff. So it really doesn't take a lot of time or energy, you know, on that end. I'm really, really focused on my work here at the airport. It's a very demanding job.

I think we'll probably talk about that more later. I don't think people understand how intense social media can be unless you've worked it. And so really, I mean, my role here at the airport is my full time thing. It takes my energy and I love it. It is a thrilling job. It's a place that I don't think I've ever worked in an environment where every day truly is completely different. And that's really what I spend all my time on. Yeah, that's so cool. Okay, well, let's just get right into it then. Let's talk social strategy for Tampa International Airport. No other airport really does it quite like you guys. So we are so excited to learn from you. What is the current strategy on each platform

for the airport? Well, first off, I don't think most people expect airports to have any kind of voice or personality, right? You don't expect them to sass you on Twitter. You don't expect them to, like, poke, like, at other people who are making fun of them. We're kind of like the Windies in some senses of airports. Like, we're just here to have a little bit of fun and find creative and fun ways to engage with our audiences and all of our different platforms, which continue to grow. Each platform really has a little bit of its own strategy because each of the audiences on our, our platforms are all different. So, you know,

for instance, our Facebook platform, which is still our largest platform, believe it or not at the airport, the demographics on that's obviously skew often a little bit older than other demographics on that obviously skew often a little bit older than other demographics on other platforms but it's where we have a lot of fun poking at people and getting poked at. And so Instagram is where people come to us expecting memes. They come to us expecting fun stuff regarding the travel journey. Twitter, we really use that for a wide variety of purposes right now.

That is our main platform. If there's an emergency or something going on at the airport, we're going to be tweeting, you know, more than likely there first. But we're also trying to raise awareness about our airline partners, about the concessions that are here at the airport, travel safety, all those types of things. And when we get, you know, new initiatives like our Blue Express curbsides, which those are the first in the country, you know, if someone's coming to the airport and they're not checking a bag, they can go right to the same level that, you know, the shuttles are to take you out to your gate. So we try to raise awareness on that platform. And then as you might guess with LinkedIn, we're primarily there to share, you know, business updates, things that are going

on with our partners in the community. So each of those platforms has a little different voice, a little different audience and, you know, our strategies therefore kind of, you know, divvied from there. Yeah, that's awesome. Are you guys on TikTok at all or no, not yet? That's a touchy one, um, for a couple of reasons, one being, uh, we just don't have the bandwidth, um, to take on a fifth platform and B, um, it was just signed into law that we're not allowed to have TikTok on government devices. And since the, so people may not understand, but the airport belongs to what's called the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority, which is a government agency and oversees four airports here in Hillsborough

County with TPA being the flagship and largest, but also Plant City Airport, Peter O'Knight Airport on Davis Islands, and then also Tampa Executive out by the Hard Rock Cafe. So we oversee all four of those airports and report that way. So TikTok's a little bit of a touchy subject for us. I think it'd be fun. I'd love for us to have a presence on there, but right now it's a little up in the air about what that's going to be like in the future. Yeah, totally. That's interesting. We were talking, I think, a couple of seasons ago with Kara. She represents Southwest Airlines social media team. And she said the same thing. They were like not on TikTok yet. I think they did launch on TikTok eventually, but she was saying it's really, really tricky in the aviation space to like try TikTok out. So there's just a lot of factors, you know, you're dealing with a lot of things that are sensitive as far as information you can and can't share.

And so, you know, there's a lot of things that go into a decision on whether we join a platform or not. I personally love TikTok. I'm on TikTok too, more than I should admit, you know, listening and watching all day long. But yeah, right now it's kind of up in the air for us what that's going to be like.

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm curious what the main goals or KPIs are for social as an airport, you know, is it to get conversions for people to fly with you? Is it to just raise awareness that you're there and all of the like restaurants and airlines that are there? What's the main goal? I would say yes to all of that. You know, we're an airport, not an airline. And so we work with all of our airline partners, A, to raise awareness about existing routes and B, to help raise awareness about new routes that are coming and to fill those planes. Because if those planes aren't full, those routes will go somewhere else. And so for us, one of our biggest initiatives on social is to raise awareness about our airline partners and the routes to and from TPA. We

actually now have more nonstop options than we did pre-COVID. So there's a lot of flights in our TPA that people either don't know about or haven't yet tried. One of our recent initiatives that we did is we partnered with Cayman Airways. Cayman's been in Tampa for 30 or 40 years. And a lot of people have never heard about Cayman Airways. So we did a travel log. I flew down there on their flight, did an Instagram reel about things to do, wrote up about the experience. And then they did a ticket giveaway where we had thousands of people enter to get free

tickets to the Cayman Airways from TPA. So one of our big, big things here at the airport is raising awareness about our airline partners in those routes. Another big thing for us, obviously, are those concessions. You know, that's the travel experience, the restaurants that are here and trying to do that in a fun way, not being like, hey guys, we have Starbucks. Well, yeah, but like, let's do something exciting to raise awareness, right? So trying to find creative ways to tell the story of things that are happening here at the airport. And then C, as far as raising awareness about the general travel experience, if there's, you know, major issues that arise here at the airport, we want to be able to communicate that to the public. We're a huge economic driver for Tampa Bay. And so working with all of our community, local, state, federal partners to help passengers

keep in the loop of what's going on. That's really what we do with our social media. Yeah. There's a lot of moving pieces there, I can imagine. And no one really does it, like I said earlier, quite like Tampa. I mean, that airport is the best airport I've ever been to. I've been to a lot of airports. We were ranked number one by J.D. Power last year. Yeah, customer satisfaction and the number one ranked airport in North America. And so we're pretty proud of that. And I think I've flown all over the world.

I've done 30 countries and all 50 states so far. I'm a little biased, but this is a phenomenal airport. And it's something that I think our community is really proud of. And you see that reflected on social. People love like sharing about things going on here at TPA. Yeah, that's awesome. How do you guys actually utilize that feedback and things from the social audience to kind of impact that larger business? So a big job, a big part of my job is reading. I spend a lot of my day reading inbound messages that are coming through our different platforms. I did a study here recently and averaged out how many messages we receive on a daily basis. If we pushed them all into a weekday and it was somewhere between 450 and 500 messages a day that are coming through the airport. People asking us questions about the travel experience, people commenting on posts,

people DMing or tweeting, tweeting us. It's a lot. And so we're always like listening and leaning in and doing our very best. If someone's complaining about something, we take it very seriously here at the airport. We're customer service obsessed. And we want to make sure that every passenger who comes through TPA has a phenomenal experience. And if they don't, for any reason, we want to hear about it. So a lot of my job is listening to what community members are saying on social. And then if there's something we can do to fix it or action it, I'm taking it to the people who could actually fix it. So recently someone came to us and they said the water station in airside C is not working. You know, you take your water bottle and you fill it in. We might not have known about that for a week or a couple

of days. So I immediately sent it off to our maintenance teams, like, Hey, heads up, get over to airside C the water stations down. So that's the kind of stuff that we see, you know, coming through on social media that we're really paying very close attention to. Oh, that's so cool. And like, you think about this, when you're in social media, you know, that social is kind of that first touch point for the consumer with your brand. But as an airport, it's really interesting to think about how people interact online with airports, they don't really want to call the number that's listed if there even is one anymore. You know, they don't want to write an email. They want immediate, you know, feedback and help.

So they're probably reaching out via Twitter, social, wherever. So that's really interesting to me. I don't, I've never even really thought about that. What's very interesting too, is, as I mentioned earlier, we're the airport, not the airline. So part of my job is helping. I feel like I'm an air traffic controller most days because I'm fielding a thousand things and sending them to other places. So, you know, we can't book you a flight. We can't change your flight more than likely. We didn't lose your bag. It's somewhere in Charlotte or who knows where it is, you know? Um, so we're often like, Hey, we've heard you,

but this is where you need to go to get the right information. Um, you know, if you've lost something on our property, we're on it. Um, but if you have an issue with, there's a lot of things that we will do our very best to action, or at least get you pointed in the right direction. Um, so we spend a lot of time doing that as well. That's awesome. Um, well, we can't talk about the social media without talking about how unhinged you guys are on there and you hinted at it a little bit earlier, but I'm just curious to hear like an example of a favorite piece of content or campaign that kind of went viral for you. One that I can think of specifically was just a couple of months ago when the Bucks lost to the Dallas Cowboys in the playoffs. That was, I think, believe a Sunday night, Monday morning,

I rolled into the office and decided to tweet good morning to everyone except the Dallas Cowboys in the playoffs. That was, I think, believe a Sunday night, Monday morning, I rolled into the office and decided to tweet good morning to everyone except the Dallas Cowboys. And it blew up. Like it just, everybody was still salty from the game the night before. And I mean, it just went viral. It, it, it got to the point that other airports started having like fake beef with us online. The, the Dallas airport airport dfw well there's two in dallas but dfw took our phoebe the flamingo in the middle of the terminal turned it upside down and like tweeted it back at us um love field the other airport was doing some kind of trash talking atlanta airport chimed in as like guys stop trash talking each other the san francisco airport uh they were playing the cowboys were playing san Francisco next. They were like, we'll take care of the Cowboys for you.

So then the local picked up on this. They ran a story being like TPA causes online beef at the airport, you know, and it was just this, it was hilarious. Like it was all in good fun. It's all in good fun. And you know, I think the thing is a, that has nothing to do with travel, right? Like literally has nothing to do with the travel experience. B, it's not something that's related to your luggage, but it's a relevant thing that was happening in our community at the time. And so I was given creative freedom to kind of lean into that conversation and add the airport's voice to it.

So that was a piece of content that went viral here recently that still, I still smile when I think about it. So we had a great time with it. Yeah, that's so awesome. I remember that tweet very well. I remember reposting it because I too was salty and that just fed my, my salty feelings and I had to reshare that. So great job on that one. I'm curious too, a minute ago, you talked about fielding all of these different incoming messages and correspondence with customers and travelers. How do you kind of manage all of that and stay organized? And how does relationship come into play internally? Because I know we have a lot of listeners who work at large organizations who have

to kind of respond and communicate with a number of different departments within the organization. So how have you kind of established those relationships internally with all these different groups, and how is that impacting your role positively? Sure, great point. So at least the team here at TPA, we're a really hardworking team that's, we're out to support each other. So working with a staff that supports each other and is all in on the common goal of being customer service obsessed, being hospitality oriented, we're all working toward making sure that all of our passengers have that great experience. So if there's something that needs to be addressed and they're hearing from me or a member of our communications team,

they're leaning in and listening and doing whatever they can to get the you know of a problem you know fixed or um taken care of so we really have that buy-in from the entire team here at tpa um and that comes you know we've earned that over time they come with trust a lot of things uh that come through social we either a don't send their way because it doesn't rise to the level and we can take care of it right away. Or B it's information, um, that, like I said, we can just do and field ourselves. Like I can answer on behalf of the airport without sending it to them and making them answer. So if I'm sending them something, it's generally a little higher priority. It's something that I either, I don't know the answer to, or B it's very specific and something that I can't personally action myself. So, um, our team really just jumps in,

supports us and, um, they, they really make the dream work here at the airport. I couldn't do it without them. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. Those relationships really come into play and you're right. Like having that one single goal that everyone's working towards that I think empowers everyone to want to work together even more. So, uh, that's amazing that you guys have that. Cause I know a lot of times that's hard to find and that's hard to build that rapport internally among the team. So that's great. I want to ask too about brand safety. You know, with technology, there's a lot of different emerging platforms and things that as marketers were asked to use, but brand safety is important, especially I'm sure as an airport. So how does your team support brand safety and what are some of the practices you've implemented or your team has implemented when posting and engaging with the community on social to not only protect that brand safety, but the safety of the community and your passengers as well?

Well, that's a great question. I mean, as I mentioned earlier, as an airport, we're not only customer obsessed, but we're safety obsessed. Safety is our top priority here at the airport. And the social media plays a critical role. It is the way for us to communicate with our community about what's going on here at the airport 24-7, 365. The airport never closes. And we have a team of people who monitor social media 24-7, 365. For my team, the communications team, one of us is on call one week out of every four. And when you're on call, you're the one checking social media late in the evenings, keeping an eye on your email. Your phone could ring at two in the morning with an emergency or something going on, and you're the one responsible for handling that. So we take safety very seriously and have a lot of things in place to ensure that our team is all on the same page when it comes to safety.

When it comes even to brand voice and how we respond to people and interact with people, our team is really, really, you know, moving in lockstep on that as well. But if there's real safety issues or things, we're going to be communicating that really quickly with the public. And, and that's, that's a huge thing for us is making sure that our travelers are informed and we use all the tools we have possible to make sure they know what's going on here at the airport. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you mentioned brand voice and it made me think of another question for you. So I know one big challenge with marketing and social media is discovering that brand voice and really honing that and using that across platforms. So how do you have any tips for not only finding that, but honing that and continuing to test different ways to kind of communicate that brand voice with your audience? Yeah, I think first off, you need to know who your audience is, right?

It's not going to be, we, okay. For instance, here at the airport, our voice sounds a little different on each platform. Facebook, we're a little more dressed up. We're a little more customer, you know, like a little more formal Instagram and Twitter. I'm going to, I'm going to reply to you with a GIF or a meme, or I'm going to sass you back. Like, I'm just going to have fun, right? On Facebook, that would probably anger some people because they wouldn't get that level of, you know, that's not what they're there for. So I think, A, knowing your audience and figuring out, okay, what kind of language is going to best suit them?

Like, is this a younger generation who would really prefer you to reply to them with LOL in the message or not, you know? So we spent a little bit of time kind of toying with that. And when I came on board here at the airport last year, that brand voice was really well set and well settled. So I really was handed the reins. Thankfully, I didn't have to do a lot of the discovering on my own. Now, obviously, as platforms continue to evolve, as our audiences continue to change, we're still leaning in and listening and trying things out. But for us, we A, know our audience and B, we kind of know what they like to hear and how we can talk to them.

That's really going to reach them where they're at. That's excellent. You've been in social media for a long time, like you were saying. How have you seen the industry change and evolve since 2013 back in the day? Oh my goodness. Do you guys remember Google plus? Do you remember the old Google plus? Like that was, those were the, when I was first starting in social, like first starting

to do it as a job, Google plus was still a thing. And Vine, Vine had just exited. Um, I was still crying over Vine. So, um, thinking back to how, how much it's changed just in the 10-ish years since then, obviously, I think we've all seen the rise of video. And I think we've seen that, at least for me, I'm no longer interested in watching a 27-minute video on YouTube, but I will sit for 60 seconds and watch a TikTok on something I'm fascinated by. Or I will watch an Instagram reel that has been fed to me. We can talk about the algorithm for

dates, but it's been fed to me and it's something that I'm interested in. And it's like, how did it, it knows. And you'll also watch 27 of those to add up to that big, longer video. The worst thing is when you watch something that you really aren't interested in, it's just playing while you're in the bathroom or something and you come back and then the next 13 videos are all related. Like, Oh, who broke it? Like who broke it? You know? So for me, I think that, um, social media does continue to change and you probably, you guys have been keeping an eye on Twitter. Um, Twitter is just, it's a mess right now. Um, and so I don't know what's going to happen with Twitter in the next couple of years. I don't know if it's going to be a relevant platform.

I find just on my own personal end, I'm kind of bored with Twitter. Like I don't really want to scroll through Twitter like I used to anymore. So each of these platforms, they change. And so I think, you know, to be an industry leader, to be people who are staying up to date, it's important to kind of watch for those nuances. I think a lot of the times it's hard to explain those. You can't really put it in a nutshell, like what's happening, but you know, something's up or something's off. So I think video is going to continue to grow and expand like crazy. I think people are very image driven. And so instead of telling stories with lots of texts, telling them through video, telling them through, you know, compelling images, I think that's going to continue to kind of be king on

social media, at least for the next year or two. Yeah, absolutely. And we talked about LinkedIn earlier as well. And we noticed on there that you manage a few internal newsletters for TPA. So tell us what is that like managing that? And what have you found with LinkedIn newsletters? Do you guys enjoy managing that? Has it performed well for you? Just tell us all the details. Yes. So I manage TPA really has two specific public facing newsletters. I manage one of those called the air service digest that goes out no more than twice a month. And that is really oriented towards people who are interested in learning about new air service, new flights leaving from TPA.

Those are short little blurbs. Hey, Air Canada has this new flight. Breeze has this new flight. American has this new flight. Book your ticket today. And so I enjoy writing about those. I love to travel. So I always like to hear about where we're getting new routes to go from from TPA.

I manage that piece. I contribute to our weekly newsletter that goes out every Tuesday from the communications team, often writing an article for that, an employee spotlight, something along those lines. And that is fun because it's really stretched my journalistic capabilities. Everyone else on the communications team came from a background in journalism. They were either a former news anchor or reporter or worked for the Tampa Bay Times. I'm the only one that came from the social media background. And so I've had a lot to learn and they've been a phenomenal team at helping me grow in my writing skills. I've always loved writing. I journal every night, but this is a whole different ballgame. And so I'm learning a lot about just how to write an article, how to have a great hook at the beginning and all those types

of pieces. We are very specific with LinkedIn, what articles we share, what articles we don't. Our goal is when we share information there, we want it to be relevant to the general, like our general LinkedIn audience. And my philosophy was social, and this is probably a little bit of a bigger conversation, but if you're putting something out there, it needs to be worth people stopping their scroll. Like they need to be, if you're putting it out there, you're putting your name behind it,

it needs to be worth people going, what's the airport talking about now? And so I wanna be very cautious about what we share to make sure that it's worth our audience's time. And so with LinkedIn, we only post there maybe once a week and it's worth our, our, our audience's time. And so with LinkedIn, we only post there maybe once a week and it's just content that's really relevant about what's happening here at the airport or what's happening with our community partners. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and you kind of teased your copywriting experience and journey already,

but do you have any tips, whether it's for newsletters, articles, or just social media captions, any copywriting tips overall, and how have you honed your skills over the years? You know, I think, um, if you could see the drafts that I have right now on my phone of captions, um, I will be like walking somewhere and I'll have an idea pop in my mind and I write it down right away. So if I were giving one little tidbit advice, especially when it comes to the world of captions or fun hooks, write something down the minute you think of it. Whether you keep a note on your phone, whether you have a, you keep paper and pen, whatever it is, if it pops in your mind, write it down immediately because 20 seconds from now,

you won't remember what that idea was. So I have ideas for all kinds of things written down on my phone, stupid captions for stuff. I'm gone next week on a big trip and I've already got stuff captioned out for my team to share while I'm gone. And if it makes you chuckle while you're thinking about it, write it down. Yeah, that's really good advice. I always lose thoughts. And actually at one of my past jobs, my boss would always think of things while she was in the shower so she bought these like shower notes that she found on I don't know Amazon probably where it was like waterproof paper and waterproof like pencil or marker or something and she would like write her stuff down in the in the the shower, which was, that's kind of chaotic, but I, maybe wait till

you're out of the shower. I'm like trying to go to sleep at night and my brain is still like turning. And so I'm yelling across the room at Siri telling me at tomorrow at 8 AM, remind me to caption it this. So like I'm, my brain will like throw stuff out all the time. And so like, Hey, if you're not writing it down, yell at Siri to remind you the next day to get it done. So great tip. Okay. Well, we're approaching the end here, which is crazy. But before we wrap up, what do you kind of know now that you wish you knew back when you started your career?

That's a good point. So I think for people who are specifically working or wanting to work in this field, A, be kind to yourself. I think self kindness is a huge thing, especially when you're dealing with the public online with general public in this field, particularly travel is not always the smoothest experience for people. And people are often very anxious, whether they've never flown before, or they're in a new environment they've never been to. Sometimes people take that out online at an airport or at an airline or any kind of brand that's really, you know, public facing,

be kind to yourself. They're not really yelling at you. And so it's easy to take that to heart sometimes. So like, hey, listen, you're a great kid. You've got it. You're going to be fine. Take a deep breath, respond in kindness and like help this passenger out or help this person out. I say just a, be kind to yourself. Um, I think the other thing too, I'm trying to think of another piece of advice that I would have besides that. Um, I think connecting and networking are invaluable. If you're looking to really grow, grow, always look for ways to meet new people and expand upon that. I think that a lot of the jobs that you're going to want are going to come from people you know, or who knows someone who knows someone in a field. That's

honestly how I got this job here at the airport, was I knew someone who was running their social media. They brought me in as an influencer. And then they were like, oh, I know someone who can do social media when they were looking for someone to take over TPA's presence. So I think it's important that, you know, you nurture those relationships with people, not to use anybody at all,

but to stay in touch with people who are in the field that you want to get into and be persistent. Ask them, do you know of anybody who's hiring or someone I could talk to that would be in this field? Those are really two big pieces of advice I'd give for someone that I wish I had known back in 2013 when Google Plus Hangouts was still a thing and Vine had just left the scene. Those are two things I really wish I would have been kinder to myself and also thought more about let's continue to build those relationships with people. Because you can spend hours applying for jobs on LinkedIn.

It just becomes demoralizing and frustrating. And sometimes that next job is only a phone call away. And it's someone you know who knows somebody. Yeah, that's a really, really good point. And I feel that we have a lot of people that come on the show that have that exact story of like, I knew somebody at this company and that's how I landed here. So that just really speaks to the power of networking and even going beyond just like the LinkedIn connection and being like, Hey, I'm really interested in what you're doing. Even if it's not someone that you've known in the past, just, you know, reaching out for even informational

interviews. I know some people's take on that is weird, but a lot of people are just really open to it, just chatting for, you know, 15 minutes or so about their jobs. So I would really encourage that as well. I know that's like super helpful to do. Before we go though, I don't want to let you go without talking about the Flamingo naming contest. Because I remember that that was wild. I also remember when they first introduced the flamingo and everyone was talking about it because they were like, why is there a huge giant flamingo in the airport? That is so weird. And if you've never been to TPA, you'll see it right away. You're not going to have to go searching for this thing. So for those who have never been, it's a 21 foot giant flamingo in the middle of the main terminal

and um it's part of our public art program here at the airport we're big on public art supporters to public art um and the flamingo just has had a life of its own in all honesty so right around the time i came on board but right before that they had decided to do a naming contest um because you know if we don't if we don't give it a name, you know, the public's going to, it's going to get some sort of name. So like, why not have a fun contest where everybody can participate and give this flamingo a name? Now it's, it's real formal name is home. That's the, that's the title of it by the artist, but we wanted to give it like a fun name, you know, that our community could rally around. And so they're like, Hey CJ, you're going to run this contest. And I'm like, okay, like, sure. Um, had no idea that it would like

rip the internet in half. Um, and it did, it just, we decided, you know, we're going to do, we're going to open up, um, we're just going to, we're going to do this. This is the process. We're going to open it up for the public to submit their name and give us a reason why they submitted the name. We're going to review all the entries. We're going to pick three good ones, and then we'll open it up and let people vote on the final three. That was the process. So we opened it up and our IT team said, Hey, CJ, we need an email address, you know, to associate with all of these entries, you know, could you, could we do yours? And I was like, yeah, yeah, it's fine. No big deal. I woke up the first morning and I'm one of those guys. I have, I have two phones. I'm like inbox two inbox four. I was at inbox almost 800 at like

eight o'clock in the morning. And I was like, oh, this is not good. Right. This is not good. And I finally got to the point where it got to like inbox a thousand inbox, 2000, it just kept growing. And I was like, I got to shut this thing off. I can't, I can't do it. And so I was like, guys, you got to stop it. Actually. I think at, at, at 5,000, it cut off. Like I couldn't get any more entries in my inbox, um, or my outbox. I don't know where it went somewhere. It was awful. And people just like this thing went worldwide. We ended up getting almost 70,000 entries in this contest from all over the world, which was humbling to us that people would take the time to name this bird. What we did not

anticipate was that number. And so we had to comb through it. We had to comb through each of those 70,000 entries, 67, 500, whatever it was, entries, and could not have done it without our data team. They helped us narrow it down to ones that were repeats or put all the reasons. So we put the three names out there and we got shellacked. People were mad. People were, there were some who were, many were so excited. Like, I love these three. Some people were like, I hate these three. You're the stupidest airport. We had someone write to the local paper being like, I'm ashamed of my city. I mean, it's just like, guys, it's a pink bird in the middle of the airport. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Like this is a competition. Like, we're here to have fun.

We just wanted to get our community involved, you know? Like, this is a big bird. We want to name it, but it's still a bird, you know? So anyway, we ended up having almost 40,000 votes in the contest. Phoebe won. But to this day, people still give us, like, they still give us, they shellack us on social. Shellack is probably the wrong word. I don't know what they do. They still give us like they still give it. They shellack us on social. So that's the wrong word. I don't know what they do.

They still give us grief. That's the right way. They still give us some grief over the names. People love it. But what I've noticed that since the contest ended, I think early January, Phoebe has really become part of people's vernacular. And when people are referring to the flamingo now, you'll hear them say Phoebe. And that just makes my heart happy to know that the bird has been named, that our community, you know, someone in our community, he was a Tampa native who lives over

Daytona Beach shores. He submitted the winning name, came over, picked up his prizes for it. And the more and more as we go on, I keep hearing people call it Phoebe, but we just, we never knew that it would take off. And, and it just went international. I mean, we had international attention, um, for the name of our giant pink flamingo at the airport. It was unlike anything I've ever, I, I had so much fun and I was also seeing my therapist every half an hour because I was like, this thing is out of control, man. It's out of control. Oh my gosh. That's so wild. That's so wild. I remember you guys, you posted on Instagram to something about like when you choose the three names and everyone hates it and you were just like

poking fun at yourself. And I'm like, that's so awesome that you guys feel the confidence to poke fun at yourself a little bit here and there. So, um, we did a great job. We did the post. I specifically remember it. It's that meme where it's just two people shouting and it's the kitty cat on the other side. And the person shouting is like, I hate all the names TPA do better. And the cat is me, the social media, like person the last few days, just being like, Oh, come on, man. Like, and you know, the, the, the genius behind it was when you do a post like that, you're really kind of calling people out without calling them out. And if you still were upset about it after that,

you looked kind of silly, you know? And so I was like, Hey, this is a bird in the middle of an airport where we love it. We want to give it a great name, but if you're losing your mind over it, like yikes, man. Um, so yeah, we, we can have a little fun. I think part of it is that give and take, right. It's that give and take with our audience and they, they come, they've come to love it and expect it from us. And so we have, we just have a great time. That's awesome. Well, and it's just such a testament to giving the audience ownership and something with your brand. We were talking yesterday with someone about this new coffee shop in Lakeland, Florida, and they're allowing customers to name their own beverages and post it on their app. And so when you invite people into something that you're doing and allow them to be a part of each step of the

process, there's so much power in that. And we're seeing more and more brands do that. So you guys are such a prime example of how that can work and how it can create a lot of buzz. Well, we, we really have fun. I mean, community to us is everything. And so finding fun ways to involve them, uh, involve our people, involve our town with what's going on at the airport. That's what we're all about. Um, you know, we're, this is, this is the, this is Tampa's airport. And so we want everyone to feel like where they're at home here. And, um, yeah, I just, I just love like having that fun with our, with our base online. It just gives, it makes me smile. What I love doing is when I'm creating a meme, I start chuckling about two or three o'clock in the afternoon, people in the office will hear me giggling and they're like, he's making memes again. And so I just love like in finding creative and fun ways to involve our town and our community and bringing us all together on social. It's so much fun for me. Absolutely. Well, CJ, you've done a fantastic job and thank you so much for coming on and sharing everything with us and your insights

and your journey. And we'd love for everyone to continue to stay in touch with you and also TPA. So can you share with us a couple of the places that we can stay in touch with both you and the brand? Sure. So as far as the airport, we're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, uh, find us at fly TPA. That's where we're at on those platforms. And then for me, uh, I'm heading on a big trip next week. So if you want, uh, I'm planning on going to Dubai, which I'm really excited about.

Um, I'm at CJ Curtis Johnson. That's my handle on Insta. So, um, there'll probably be lots of desert and coffee, uh, and hopefully some cool sunset pics over there. So that's where they can stay in touch with me and with the airport. Amazing. Well, we cannot wait to continue to stay in touch with both you and the airport, and we will be flying with you soon. And if you haven't flown through Tampa, definitely do. It's a great experience. Uh, but thanks again, CJ, for joining us today. We really loved having you on. Thanks for having me excited to be with you soon. And if you haven't flown through Tampa, definitely do. It's a great experience. But thanks again, CJ, for joining us today. We really loved having you on. Thanks for having me. Excited to be with you both.

Thanks for listening to this week's episode. We hoped you loved it as much as we did. If you enjoyed the conversation, we'd love to get your feedback on the episode. Head to the review section of your favorite podcast app and let us know what you thought. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week. We are so excited to share that our first ever free marketing happy hour digital resource is now available. Download the dream career game plan today at marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie. That's marketinghappyhr.com forward slash freebie. This five-step workbook will guide you through defining your goals, building your network, diversifying your skills, influencing where

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