Marketing Happy Hour - Video Content 101: Make it "Snackable" | Adam Cilley of Sports Card Investor

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

This week, Erica and Cassie are catching up with Adam Cilley, Social Media Content Director at Sports Card Investor.  We first met Adam during our Clubhouse days when he was working as Senior Social Media Specialist at Clearwater Marine Aquarium, and he shared the inside scoop on how he was able to grow their TikTok by hundreds of thousands of followers.  Now, Adam joins us to uncover how to navigate social media video strategy between platforms, share his experience changing industries from non-profit to for profit, and general keys to success in a social media career. Here's a peek at what we cover in this episode: [00:04:32] - Adam shares what piqued his interest in social media early on and walks us through his career journey.  He also gives great interview tips for anyone looking to get started in social media.  [00:013:35] - Adam outlines the innovative strategies he used to grow CMA's social media presence, including utilizing Cameo, starting and scaling their TikTok, and working with animal influencers. [00:28:09] - Adam details his experience with Sports Card Investor, giving us a behind the scenes look at their current content strategy across platforms, the creation of "snackable" content on YouTube Shorts, and how they're sharing their founder's story as an audience connection touchpoint. [00:33:33] - Adam shares his management style in working with freelancers and communication advice for social media professionals.   [00:45:52] - Adam looks ahead to the future of social media and shares his thoughts on augmented reality and in-app experiences. Grab a drink and listen in to this week's Marketing Happy Hour conversation! ----- Other episodes you'll enjoy if you enjoyed Adam's episode: Creating Unforgettable Customer Experiences Online | Stephen Kubiak of Universal Parks & Resorts Managing Social at a Startup? Listen to This! | Danielle Vito of AvantStay ____ Say hi! DM us on Instagram and share your favorite moments from this episode - we can't wait to hear from you!  Please also consider rating the show and leaving a review, as that helps us tremendously as we move forward in this Marketing Happy Hour journey and create more content for all of you. NEW: Check out our website! NEW: Join our email list! Connect with Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamcilley/ Learn more about Sports Card Investor: https://www.sportscardinvestor.com/ Follow MHH on Instagram: https://instagram.com/marketinghappyhr Follow MHH on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketing-happy-hour/ Subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter, Marketing Happy Hour Weekly: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/marketing-happy-hour-weekly-6950530577867427840/ Join our Marketing Happy Hour Insiders LinkedIn Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/9238088/

Hey there, welcome to the Marketing Happy Hour podcast, where each week we're learning career-defining advice, powerful social media strategies, unique creative tips, groundbreaking influencer marketing tactics, and more from marketing experts that represent some of the world's leading brands. Let's dive in. Grab a drink and join your hosts hosts, Cassie and Erica, for this week's episode. Hey there, thank you so much for tuning in to Marketing Happy Hour. I can't wait for you to hear from Adam Silley, Social Media Content Director at Sportscard Investor. Cassie and I first met Adam during our clubhouse days when he was working as Senior Social Media Specialist at Clearwater Marine Aquarium,

and he shared the inside scoop on how he was able to grow their TikTok by hundreds of thousands of followers. Now he catches up with us to uncover how to navigate social media video strategy between platforms, share his experience changing industries from nonprofit to for-profit, moving through burnout in his social media position, and his keys to success in a social media career. Grab a drink and listen in to this week's episode of Marketing Happy Hour. Hey, Adam, how are you? Welcome to Marketing Happy Hour. Hey, doing well, Cassie. Thank you for having me on. You're so welcome. So we had you on Clubhouse, gosh, like a year and a half ago.

So long ago. When Marketing Happy Hour was barely a thing. So super excited to just check in with you and see what's up in your life and career. I know you've been up to a lot just based off of following you on LinkedIn. So before we do that though, we do ask all of our guests a very important question because it is marketing happy hour. Adam, what is in your glass this evening? Uh, unfortunately not too exciting. Just drinking some water, just trying to rehydrate, getting ready for going back to move into Tampa and getting ready for a beach weather. So just trying to limit the amount of,

uh, adult beverages going in, but yeah, thank you for having me on again. Um, I feel like it's been a long time coming partly it's actually all of my fault because I switched careers and moved and now we're doing this right months before I moved back. So, um, yeah, I, I apologize, but thank you for being patient with me. Do not worry at all. We are super excited. Like I said, to check in and, um, I am also not super excited or super exciting on my end here. I have a big thing of water and I also have kombucha because I just got back from a trip

to New York city and ate way too much and drink way too many fun drinks. So I'm trying to kind of also detox my body a little bit. So Erica, what about you? That's fantastic. I took a page out of your book. I am double fisting as you always are with water. And I had another marketing happy hour recording before this. And I made myself a little Negroni.

Now there right now is like a trending audio that's talking about a Negroni Spagliato with Prosecco in it. So I don't know if you know me, my favorite go-to drink is a Negroni. So I was like, I need to try that. So I did a little spin on it and it's really, really good. So highly recommend a very good trending audio there. Yep.

Yeah. The Game of Thrones cast, right? I think that's who did it. Yeah. It's House of Dragons. Thank you. The proper name. Only reason why I want to have that drink I know I want to try it too I I myself am watching the show and I'm loving it so I saw that and I was like you know I need to I need to try it out and see how that is just because I love the cast so much so. Well, let's dive right in here. I know we have like a lot to cover. So, uh, Adam, we chatted a lot about your career journey, you know, during our clubhouse session

early last year, which seems so long ago. And I know that you've been up to a lot since then. I'd love for our listeners to just hear how you launched your career in social media. Did you always want to work in social? How did you navigate your college experience and land your first job? I know that's a lot of questions in one, but just like walk us through that process. Yeah, so I'm, I think I'm reaching like eight years into social media now. I can take you back to like the very, very beginning. I was going to the University of Connecticut. I'm from Connecticut originally. And I was studying American studies. I was all in on becoming a history teacher.

I just thought that that's the path that I was going to follow. And during the weekends, I would, I, so I was up at Storrs campus. It's probably like 45 minutes away from my hometown. Go home on the weekends. And I worked at an arcade, at Mohegan Sun. It's a pretty big arcade. It was like split in half. There's like babysitting, so you can drop your kids off, go gamble, go to a show at the arena. But then the other side is just your traditional arcade. And I worked my way up there from, you know, part-time to supervisor to assistant manager. And there was just this

like aspect of social media that kind of got my interest and a way that we can promote the arcade with some of the prizes that we were getting in. So I was using, I think it was like the iPods, iPod, like that was like a phone almost. Wow. And was it the touch like the iPod touch before that? So yeah, Nana was the one that didn't have a screen at all. Yeah, there's iPod touch. Man, it was those things didn't have cameras on the back. So I was literally like taking photos, like holding it up facing towards the prizes but that just kind of like hooked me um I I had an interest in it and you know I was I was able to see building something out of nothing um so then once I finished my bachelor's degree it's like I don't want to teach anymore I want

to try to like learn a little bit more about this. So there's a university up in Northeast Southern New Hampshire University. It's got a campus, but it's primarily known as being an online university and just did like a social media marketing graduate certificate. And from there, it was just like hooked. And I was trying to find a job in social media with no experience uh I wasn't really fortunate enough to do internships during college I was working on the weekends um but then my local aquarium Mystic Aquarium um probably halfway between Boston and New York and if you've ever seen the movie Mystic Pizza with Julia Roberts then you know exactly

that little quaint New England town with a big aquarium there with beluga whales and California sea lions and African penguins big tourist destination so they were hiring for a social media and analytics specialist and got my foot in the door there and worked there for I want to say it was probably like three or four years, four or five maybe. And it was just like such a fun job. And I was hooked because that was like the place that I grew up going to like field trips on. So we were able to spread the message of all the work that they were doing with the animals. And I just knew,, even going to college, I didn't want to stay in the Northeast. So I, uh,

was looking for other opportunities, not even specifically aquariums, but something popped up with Clearwater Marine Aquarium. I never heard of it. I just saw them online, uh, interviewed, got interviewed and asked if I ever heard about winter, the dolphin said, no, was told to go watch the movie that night and I watched the movies um but yeah then I moved down there and worked there for two years and um I moved like right as the pandemic happened like my mom was stuffing my jeep with toilet paper I sold everything but it was like toilet paper was selling out she stuffed my car um and that my brother lives in

charlotte did the one day drive down to charlotte drove next day from charlotte to florida and that second day clear water's like hey we're closing like sorry like there's nothing we can really do so uh very thankful to that organization to you know they could have easily said hey like we can't take on any hires we don't know the uncertainty but they were able to um take me on and it was a roller coaster of two years an organization that i'll forever be grateful for them giving me the opportunity and be able to you know be a voice behind their social accounts um and then you know i i was looking for other opportunities outside i wanted to try to challenge myself a little more a little bit more in social media get outside the aquarium non-profit world

um and saw an opportunity with a company called sports card investor uh it's um we're a content organization we have uh an app available in the apple play Store and Google Play Store. We have a software called Market Movers, which allows you to track all of the eBay sales of your trading cards, just hobby related. Something that I grew up in was sports have been a mainstay of my life. So yeah, now I'm director of social content for them. And it's been a fun eight, 10 months that I've been in here. I guess that's how I can like give you my, that's not an elevator speech at all. That was way longer than elevator speech,

but that's like a short synopsis of me. Yeah, no, that's great. That's so cool. And I hadn't heard before I moved down to Florida of Clearwater Marine Aquarium either, but I know Cassie was a big fan, always a big fan. She, I think at one point wanted to do something in like marine biology. Is that true, Cass? Yeah. Yeah. No, I was going to say too, you kind of had a perfect segue. I worked there for several years, so loved it. Yeah. Obsessed with that place even

still to this day. So yes. Oh my gosh. So fun. Adam, do you have any, while we're kind of on the subject of like changing jobs and things like that, do you have any tips for like the interview process for someone looking to get started in social media? Yeah. So when I got my foot in that door at, at mystic, like, you know, I, I walked in there and that's, i'm a guy who's posting to instagram for an arcade uh 10 minutes out of his day when he's trying to help customers um so what i got from feedback is i stood out because i went into the interview processes with um research and action items on like you know what they could do to help further their social media.

So rather than just trying to give them like the little bit of experience that I have, I told them like, you know, within my first three months, these are opportunities that I see to help grow the account. This is like early stages of social media. So they were, I think they had like two weeks worth of Instagram content. And, you know, in that, in that day and age of social media, I feel like a dinosaur at this point. I feel, I feel like a social media manager years are like dog years. Like you're so much older than what you actually are. Yeah. Probably, probably even more than dog years. Isn't it like seven years for one year for a dog? It's probably like 14, probably double that for social media.'d make me like 140 um great love it uh like I was

pointing out that they weren't using hashtags on their Instagram posts um and I was able to use some uh I can't even tell you the name of these web browsers but it was just like uh hashtag research and it was telling me you know if yeah if you're able to use these hashtags and you're able to, you know, expand your reach by three X. And so I think when you go into those interview processes, you need to, you know, lean on yourself and your experiences, but then also show them and prove to them, give them some examples, you know, don't tear apart their work, but, you know, show them areas that they're doing well, but then little pockets that they can, you know, that you can come in and help further upon. Oh, absolutely. I actually, someone just reached out to me today asking me about like the world of social media and how to like get their

foot in the door. And that's exactly the advice I gave, whether wherever you're going, just make sure that you're knowledgeable about the space and give them some opportunity to, you know, get a peek into like what, you know, and what, where you think they could go. And that's such good advice. So thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah. So Adam, we mentioned a minute ago, you worked for CMA for a little bit of time. And, um, if you're not familiar with CMA, it is a rescue rehab and release facility for marine animals down in Clearwater, Florida, highly recommend going to check it out if you can. Uh, but Adam, so you led CMA is social media strategy for quite a bit of time. And especially during the pandemic, I saw personally huge growth for your guys' platforms.

And it was really impressive to watch from afar. But could you tell us some of the strategies you implemented to try to reach and grow that audience during that time you were at the company? Yeah. So I get down there, like I said, and they're shut down. So, you know, all of the money that they get, or not all of the money, but a large chunk of the money that they get to help, you know, rescue, rehab, and release those animals, um, it's through guests walking through those doors every day. Um, and that just is taken away right away. Um, so I get in there, meet all my coworkers virtually, and we need to pivot. We

need to figure out a way to you know leverage social media leverage our email leverage our website to be able to raise funds for the animals um so we actually launched a really uh fun initiative as i joined um where you know it's not directly social media related but we were able to use social media for it where people can order personalized videos from their favorite rescued animals for a small donation. So we were able to do that. A lot of my time was like at the aquarium at that time. It was me, you know, the facilities team, the animal care team, that's about it. And we were recording those videos, getting them uploaded to Google Drive, out so that was huge but then we were also able to pivot there and we were the first aquarium on cameo Fiona Fiona the hippo if you know her from the Cincinnati Zoo she was the

first animal but we were the first aquarium so that was a lot of fun and you know super rewarding it was very successful we were getting hundreds of orders a day and you know we we would do thousands of videos um in that time but then we were also able to um one fun thing is that was like the the launch of tiktok right as you see a lot of people were spending time scrolling through that app. And they posted about three videos before I got there. And, you know, a lot of the animal care staff, when they're at the aquarium and there are guests coming through, they spend a lot of time doing presentations, just educating the guests about those rescued animals, their stories. You know, they have so many great individual stories, but when nobody's there, they their stories, you know, they have so many great individual stories,

but when nobody's there, they're just, you know, feeding the animals and keeping them enriched the best way that they could. And so I was like, why don't we just try, you know, at that time, I feel like TikTok has evolved so much. And that time it was like the dance craze of TikTok. So unfortunately I had to make the animal care trainers dance a lot and we would have like little cameos from the animals in the background um and that was uh something unprecedented I've never seen before on social media we we grew from zero to 400,000 followers in like three weeks wow so it was it was a lot of fun and then we were able to pivot and you know able to use social media and tiktok our following at that time you know like tell the stories and you'd see all the comments people are like is that winter from uh dolphin tail and you know everybody's rediscovering their childhood and uh we were able to do a lot of fun things and like

i would say like the second evolution of tiktok where it's more storytelling and able to do a lot more original content um one of my favorite things that I was able to do there is there's a golden retriever in Tampa named uh a golden named Kevin yeah we love we love him we got Kevin to the aquarium but we did it in a fun way like we didn't just invite Kevin we uh we had like we sent Kevin a gift basket and Kevin watched Dolphin Tale and then we facetimed and invited Kevin and the animal care team got to like love on Kevin and um you know so I would say that like when I look back on my time at Clearwater and managing their social media, I really have fond memories of TikTok and how I was able to leverage building a new audience and helping out the aquarium through that time. It sounds like you were really able to tap into your creativity.

Like that is so fun. I'm sure it was stressful at the time, like not knowing what's ahead and trying to just like create content to like keep this thing going. But looking back, that's so cool. Like you really took that and ran with it. I love that. I love hearing about that. It's so interesting.

Yeah. And I, I like to, you know, we don't necessarily always think about cameos being a social media platform, but it kind of is in a way, you know, it's very connective and things like that. So, um, to Erica's point, just, you guys got so innovative with that, especially for a nonprofit organization, figuring out ways to engage the audience during that time. Um, but to that point too, Adam, I'm just curious outside of Tik TOK. And you mentioned kind of in a way influencer marketing with Kevin, he is a huge name on social media. Anything else? Yeah. Anything else that you guys were doing outside of those two areas, any Instagram strategies? I know it's kind of weird while TikTok was building people were like,

okay, what do I do with Instagram versus TikTok? Any ideas or thoughts there? And some of the strategies that you guys instilled during that time? Yeah, it's funny now looking back on it, it's almost easier because now everything that you make a TikTok, you're just going to throw it on Instagram and it's a reel and it's going to perform well. But at that time, like reels weren't a thing, you know, IGTV was still around where it was just, uh, so there was a lot of uh balancing different content because we have you know we have the cma accounts but then winter had her own accounts as well and you know she had large followings on facebook and instagram um you know we did a lot of fun

a lot of fun things on instagram at that time. One of the dolphins there, his name's Nicholas. Nicholas is my absolute favorite. He has a fantastic story as well. It's sad, but he was stranded with his mother. And they actually, the mother passed away and he was very young at the time, I think less than six months or six months old. And he got sunburns on the back of him.

So he's got these scars, but Nicholas is just like a ball of energy. He loves to have fun. And they launched something before I got there called Nick's Picks, where he would pick like winners of sporting events. So lucky me, I moved from Connecticut where Tom Brady won six Super Bowls and two weeks after I moved Tom Brady moves to Tampa so imagine that that's so good and not to mention the lightning and not to mention the Rays like made the World Series I'm like I that was that was like the golden year of sports and I was so obsessed and Cassie came over for the super bowl when we were

in it. Oh, such good. Yeah. And then the super bowl is in Tampa. So it was just like, right. Crazy. So we got to do fun, uh, Nick's picks around that, you know, it was very disgust of like who Nick is going to pick. Are we going to rig it? Are we going to make Nick pick the, the Buccaneers? He actually picked the chiefs the Chiefs um but yeah we got to do a lot of fun stuff around like like my current job I love sports got to do a lot of fun things on Instagram with sports um so the the Stanley Cup came to visit we were able to get a lot of like fun uh i don't even think there were reels at the time but video content around that um there is a his name's escaping me right now but olympic swimmer um who won who was from tampa and there was a seahorse that was rescued uh outside of the aquarium that was brought in

that actually had a bunch of babies um and we named the seahorse after him and he brought his olympic medal in and came at the seahorse and if you know anything about seahorses they're terrible swimmers they actually die from exhaustion because they're so bad at swimming gosh um i did not know that yeah like we were you know nothing like directly with like uh like specifically to instagram because we had a Facebook following, but we just got to, you know, that's my favorite thing about, uh, social media is telling these stories, you know, it doesn't have to always be just limit yourself to one post, but able to, you know, tell things throughout a week's time, a month time. Um, yeah. Yeah. And how does being at a nonprofit and then now I'm, I'm assuming a for-profit organization that you're at now, correct? Yes. Okay. So how, how does that differ for you? Was that kind of

a weird learning curve to go from nonprofit to for-profit and how did those strategies differ between the two? Yeah, it's, it's completely different. Especially since I left and went to like a small startup where our current team at SEI is around 20 full-time employees. Whereas like CMA's marketing department was, I want to say around 12 itself. Wow. Um, so yeah, there's, there's a lot, a lot, a lot of differences that I've noticed so far. Um, as far as, um, you know, CMA, you wanted to find, um, there's a lot of guidelines with animal rescue, a lot of stuff with the Florida Fish and Wildlife, um, that you want to make sure that you're showing the right things, uh, in terms of like, um like um the the releases and stuff like that um but then with sci it's just you know we can be a little bit more edgy uh can have a lot a little bit more

fun with memes um step outside the box whereas like the first couple months i'm like hang on we we probably shouldn't be sharing that like that's not and they're like no it's fun and you just see like the audience react to it and um enjoying it so there's uh some subtle differences uh the biggest thing from like these two jobs that really has challenged me is cma all of their instagram at the time before this is before video um it's super photography driven so i was able to get up from my desk walk around and just be inspired by you know seeing you know some new enrichment that nicholas got or um seeing a new exhibit that's being built that we are going to premiere whereas this job it's like you got to find stuff on the internet uh all the graphics that you're going to make are

you know the instagram is going to be primarily graphic driven. There are some photos, but that I would say is probably like the biggest challenge that I've had so far. Shifting gears just a little bit. I would love to learn more about your current role with Sports Card Investor. I was just looking at the Instagram. It looks so cool. How did you navigate that industry shift while staying in a social media role? You touched on it a little bit, but I don't know if you had any other major things that stood out to you. Yeah, like I said, it was a challenge with, you know, everything's a lot design based. My biggest pet peeve right now is like Instagram reel thumbnails.

So we even have, we're even, we're even making like thumbnail reels. I love the aesthetic, like following it, like, whereas like the aquarium was just photo based and, you know, just kind of like, we, you know, the, the photos had like the same type of, of look to them, but like this, I just try to like match the theme of it. Like I said, the biggest, like the biggest shift that I've noticed and how i've been trying to adapt is you know uh with the aquarium we were given like we would know certain things were coming we knew an exhibit was coming and we would have to prepare you know this is our social media plan for this is you know the types of photos that we want to get this is a video um you know uh there's a sea turtle release you know we would

have a couple days notice and like you know we would get repetitions on that and they would do a lot of them and um these certain beaches where you know they weren't heavily populated so i was able to you know be prepared i knew going into the situation kind of what to tackle, but with like sports, you never know. And especially the trading card market, there's breaking news. And a lot of these things you don't know until there's a tweet that comes out about it. And then you have to pivot and have that breaking news graphic out and ready. And because it's just like there's there's this race to get to get to social media first with it um you know like one of the early examples that i have is uh fanatics they purchased uh tops trading company so that happened

at like 10 o'clock at night and i was just like in bed like getting the graphic out um so that's been uh a fun adjustment uh just learning about it it but like I said you know sports have been something that have always just come to me and something that I always keep up with so you know it's it's not a burden it's it's an enjoyment and you know discovering these stories and telling these stories and finding different ways to do you know content you know throwback thursday type of stuff or just like you know going out to card shows and highlighting these like very valuable cards and different aspects has been a fun experience so far and a challenge and something that i really enjoyed um and i think you know when i look back at mystic and I look back at CMA and I look at here I I've discovered that I've learned I've loved building things um whether that's CMA's TikTok

mystic's Instagram uh with with these guys when I joined 10 months ago they had about 60,000 Instagram followers and uh a month ago we crossed 100,000 so we were able to you know have a lot of success in the in the algorithm a lot of things were being thousand so we were able to you know have a lot of success in the in the algorithm a lot of things were being picked up we were able to leverage reels very well and uh there was no tiktok when i got here either so um i've been putting content on there repurposing a lot of our youtube videos were known for our youtube following um so we were able to take that content put that on there and i think we're at like 97,000. So, um, it's been a lot of fun building things and, um, and seeing that, that process come

to fruition. What is your current strategy right now? What content have you seen perform well or not so well? I know you mentioned you're on Instagram and that's performing really well with like reels and you've gone on to Tik TOK. Is there any other platforms that you guys are concentrated on and what's performing well there? So we are on, we're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tik TOK.

Like those are the primary ones that we're sharing content to daily. As far as the current strategy that we have on there, you know, so we were founded by an entrepreneur. His name is Jeff Wilson. He owns a marketing agency. It's called 352. And he rediscovered trading cards with his son. And so he started off on his own

by going to what's called the National. It's the biggest card show of the year and they they bounce around every city so i think this year was his third or fourth um so we get a lot of inquiries because they'll make vlogs out of going to these card shows and he'll sometimes buy very expensive cards um and then sometimes we'll just like get to meet really interesting people so we've been able to take a lot of that content where he's out uh and it's our youtube uh content that's 10 plus minute long videos and say hey you know let's chop up this little period of him purchasing a card and and throw it up on instagram And that has really seen a lot of success.

So we've been leaning into that. And then outside of that, he was in LA for the summer and him and a videographer went to an angels game. And have you seen, there's like those videos where a guy will walk around and say like, Hey, would you rather have this or ten dollars or like yes I think one of the trends is like do you want two cookies or you want me to double it and give it to the next person yeah yeah so we're doing that we're walking or he was walking around the angels game and being like hey do you want this like Mike Trout card who's a an angels player or do you want you know five dollars and the trout card would be worth like 15 or 20. And that got great reception.

So that's been on our TikTok, YouTube shorts, and Instagram has been successful. So we're looking at, I mentioned it once and Kelly Francis, our VP of content, she loves to use it, but we're looking for that like snackable content, things that we can put out there that people are able to digest in, you know, 30 seconds to a minute and really captures their attention. I love that. You mentioned YouTube shorts, and that's a huge thing that I am just so curious about. How do you find that platform? Is it as successful as like a tiktok or instagram reels or is it more like just on the come up um so we we have three videographers and editors that will film our content and put it out on youtube um so my current role like i would manage sti's instagram twitter facebook tiktok and then they would manage

YouTube. But then Jeff, he has his own social media accounts. So we filmed some like business type reels, you know, him giving some entrepreneur advice, things outside of sports card content. And I was managing that YouTube. So I would just take what we were getting for Instagram reels and TikTok and putting it up on there. Um, so one day I wake up and I'm like, uh, this video went from like 3000 views to like 40,000 views in a couple of days. Um, that video right now, I think we've got one that has 10 million, one that has four. Um, and there's there's just like you know so our video team that manages the sci youtube they're like um we're gonna need some of those instagram reels like the files can you send them back to us so yeah they uh they've had uh fantastic growth on there as well um and it's just been it it's unfortunate because it takes a little bit out of the creativity

of like different platforms but you know what's playing on instagram right now it's unfortunate because it takes a little bit out of the creativity of like different platforms, but you know, what's playing on Instagram right now, it's going to play on TikTok and it's going to play on YouTube shorts. So while we can, let's, let's ride this wave of momentum. Yeah, absolutely. And I know you mentioned like the founder and he's in a lot of those videos. Is that something that's important to your strategy is kind of like the personal brand building around your founder, or is that just kind of something that you guys fell into and found success with? Yeah, super important for us. You know, he's led a lot of organizations from their like startups and invested in them and given them their guidance. So it's just kind of like, like, you know, we're seeing his experience, why not take what he's doing and give it out as a little bit of advice, hopefully

it can, you know, generate some leads for him, help out his agency. But it's just been something that we've been leaning in on. And we've noticed when we use him in our, our SCI content, that that gets a little bit more of attention. So these people look to him as an influencer, someone who has experience and, you know, they're interested in what his thoughts are on the market. Oh, that's really cool. I love that. How does your role now of social content director differ from any of the roles that you've held in the past? Are you leading a team? Do you have any like management that you're responsible for? What does that look like for you? Yeah. So we're, like I said, we're a very small organization. Um, but I'm lucky right now. I get to work with a great individual named Cooper. Um, and he, he splits time. He's a contractor with us. He works on our graphics. So he makes a lot of our YouTube thumbnails. He makes a lot of our website

article thumbnails, but then he helps me with social. So like a lot, like, like you mentioned, you looked at our Instagram, it looks great. That's him. Like I, I give him, you know, kind of like my thoughts kind of like generate like what I think will work and he makes it look beautiful. So it's been awesome working with him. And that's one thing that really drew me into this company was having the ability to, you know, step outside of a one person type role into a role where I can have someone to bounce ideas off of that has that like same

mindset mentality. He's done social in the past for a couple different sports organizations. So he has that sports mindset. Whereas I have like, the social media and card mindset. So we're able to, you know, work together. He actually lives in Arizona, so I've never met him, but it's, it's, he's probably, I talked to him more than I talked to my parents and my brother. It's a great, great team that we have. That's awesome. That's awesome. How does working with a contractor, like what's the behind the scenes with that? Like how often are you interacting with him? I know you just said like so much, but what does that communication look like? What's your management style like with that? Because I know in the past I've had to work with contractors

or freelancers and they're not necessarily like on the same timeline as maybe my organization. So just would love to hear a little bit about your experience with that. Yeah. So we communicate through Slack, like nonstop. And this guy, bless his heart, he was up at like 6 a.m. their time today. And I'm like telling him, I'm like, you don't have to start. You can sleep. But he's, we set up a time once a week uh as our like quote-unquote stand-up um where we'll just slack or we'll get on video slack for 45 minutes and that's kind of

like our uh taking off point for Wednesday it's a good middle ground where we're able to like get through the day a little like get through the week a little bit but we're not at the end of the week where we just kind of want to you know get to the weekend um but you know we we get to chat a little bit about personal life get to learn a little bit about him but then we're able to like run through our social content and be like well this is the direction i was thinking this is a higher priority than the others um you know we've got some upcoming um events this is you know we need to prepare for this um so you know honestly it probably if you told me about it months ago i would probably be scared of it but i think i got very lucky with this one individual who uh just gets it and he works so hard.

And, you know, it's funny, like I said, our social media growth, when you look at it, like right around the time that he started helping me is like when things shot off. So now I just kind of like, I refer to those times as like BC or living in during Cooper DC. So I just tell them we can't have AC, you know, you got to stick around. He's got to stay. Well, shout out to Cooper. You're apparently the best. So that's amazing. That's awesome. Yeah. I it's so interesting, especially with COVID. I feel like a lot of the marketing world has shifted to working with a lot of contractors. And at first in the world of working with contractors, I think we kind of like looked at that as, Oh, they're not actually

employees of the company. Like we don't give them the same recognition and experience as a real team member does, but I think they're looking for that too. And I've noticed that too, with people I work with, just they want the same recognition appreciation that any other team member would want. And so making them feel kind of welcome and a part of the team and communicating as much as you would with another team member, I think probably helps a lot for them. So that's awesome. Yeah. I love bouncing ideas off. I awesome yeah I love bouncing ideas off I mean I love the ideas that he brings to the table like he has brought these um engagement play ideas that are just like things that I wouldn't have thought of to think of like with sports cards and it's you know uh

this past weekend we did one it's like your favorite food is like this is the card that you would get so it's like you're a cheeseburger then you get a michael jordan card um so he does a lot of those like fun like uh this is your birth month this is the card you get and it's just you know like those little things where you're trying to get people to you know likes are important but you know you see things kind of get more momentum if you can get the comments and you can get the saves and you can get the shares where he gets that little aspect of it and has been able to cultivate that for us. And I think that's why he's been successful. Yeah. That's so cool. I'm looking right now at the Instagram as you're speaking. And I see like, would you rather have this card or that card or like tag someone who

needs this, all of those call to actions. Those are so smart. So that's awesome. Really cool. Awesome. Yeah. I need to take a look more and get some inspiration because I, I think for me sometimes in social specifically, we can kind of run dry of ideas and ways to engage people.

So that's so awesome that you guys are doing that and it's working well for you. So Adam, I do have kind of a juicy question for you. So what would you say is the key to success in a social media role in general? Communication throughout your organization is key because you are the way that social media managers have this power now is like they're almost their voice is heard more often than a ceo's um so people are opening they have that accessibility where they're able to open their phone and directly connect with clearwater marine aquarium or directly connect with sports card investor rather, you know, seeing a newspaper article with the direct quotes. So finding success through communicating with other departments saying,

how can I help you execute your role to the public? So at the aquarium, whether that's HR and going to them and helping them, you know, get out the opportunities that we have with volunteers or interns or staff that we need, going to the culinary department and they're telling us, you know, that they're coming out with new food at the food court, going to the exhibit director and him coming to me with different exhibits that are coming out of the animal care team um being very present and being around a lot of these people and letting them know that you're there to help them um will ultimately make your job easier because

these people are going to come to you they're going to know that you have that open door that open slack where they can just say hey like this is what i need help with and that will like cassie just said like you come to a burnout with social content these people are here to you know give you ideas for social content it's it's up to your creativity to take that content that they're giving to you and deliver it in a way that you know is going to you know overcome the quote-unquote algorithm and and get get get it to more people so um yeah I would just say talking to people is is key and not even at work it's just you know meeting you two and your LinkedIn group and your podcast you know those things are going to help you and further your career. Yeah, absolutely. And that's such great advice. And I think too, with communication, sometimes,

especially early in our careers, I remember I was a little bit hesitant to present new ideas and to speak up and say, Hey, what if we try this? And so do you have any tips around that, you know, building confidence in presenting new ideas to speaking up, whether it's to your leaders, to different departments, anything around that specific topic? I'm not a fan of public speaking at all. I hate getting it. And yet here we are in the middle the same thing yep yep like I uh just preparation I think it's huge for me I know that like going into what like a discussion a panel

um talking to higher-ups it's just like knowing what you want to say and like getting getting it out whether you're saying it to like the mirror on your car ride to work um during your lunch break just you know you'll find comfort in reps right like isn't that the key to working out is just like doing it every day and, you know, finding, finding those things that will help you out. And I think that's, that's the key to, you know, talking to people around you that, you know, you might be uncomfortable with. Yeah, absolutely. And I think too, knowing that you are in the position you're in for a reason. So you are the subject matter expert, I think is really important to remember too. Like you can feel like you don't know what you're doing. But it's important

to like, just understand and recognize that you are where you are for a reason and that they hired you for a certain reason or position or whatever I come back to, I don't know who it was, it's escaping me right now, but somebody on one of our previous episodes said that exact thing is like, you were hired on for a reason. There's a reason why you're in the spot that you're in and you need to like step confidently into that. And I think that helps a lot in those conversations for sure. Do you have any predictions just like looking forward for the future of social media um I know there's been a lot of talk about video and how that's king right now do you think there's anything

else that's coming up that will be quote-unquote king I know there's also be real which is hilarious I just um was on another recording for our podcast and we talked a little bit about how American Eagle just tapped into Be Real, which is crazy. I didn't even know that brands could like have an account. I don't know if it's like through an employee or what, but what do you foresee in the future? I think that it's going to be a lot more connection touch points with the customer um whether that's through something like be real or whatever the metaverse holds but i'd love to hear your perspective i have like i have two thoughts when i think of the future of social uh the first one like i i go

back to uh like the tourism marketing that i was able to do. And I think it's the expansion of augmented reality and, you know, the metaverse, those types of experiences. I saw that after I left, after Winter passed away, they had an experience where you're able to, you know, swim with Winter where they have this 360 camera. So I think there's going to be more ways that you can like virtually tap into visiting locations. So like, I think a lot of people right now I know me

I'm very guilty of it I'm gonna go to a different city I'm gonna search that and like the location I'm gonna look up all these restaurants and look at their Instagram so I feel like there's gonna be a way for uh people to you know visit before they visit I guess is what I'm trying to say um and I think we're starting to see it uh a lot but the the removing of like web browser accessibility where you're able to like experience everything from a brand's perspective by staying on the app you know when I know I get served a lot of like shopping ads and you know you hit the visit shop and they click on it and it just like opens to their Instagram shop um I don't think it right now it's not like the best it could be whereas a lot of times I go to the website I just

feel like I don't get enough products um but I think that they're gonna be able to have a bigger brand presence beyond their like profile grid with whether that's like learning about the organization more in depth or be able to shop with them, be able to consume their product, buy tickets to a sporting event, things like that are going to pop up a little bit more. Yeah. That's so interesting too. Cause I feel like already we've seen, especially with Instagram specifically and Tik TOK, I'd say it's hard to get people off the platforms and to get them to click onto a webpage or wherever it is outside of the platform. And so I am hoping to, especially with shopping specifically, that the experience within the

apps is going to get so much better. And so we won't have to feel the need to click off of the platform because I know how kind of annoying that is in a way for the experience to have to jump between different apps and remember what you were looking at on Instagram and things like that. So almost like an all-inclusive experience, I guess, on the applications. Yeah. The day that I don't have to put link in bio. Yeah. It's a day that I am going to be. Wait, that is, that is hilarious because you just mentioned link in bio and that's who I was talking to right before this.

Um, later, later the platform, like social media, um, planning platform, they own link in bio. I did not know that. It is hilarious. That is so funny. Well, we still love you link Lincoln bio. It is hilarious. So funny. Well, we still love you Lincoln bio. But no, I, I totally understand that. It's so funny. I've always been so confused. I'm like, why hasn't Instagram allowed us to click on links on in the captions? And I think it honestly is that very notion that they want to create these experiences all on the app and they don't want us to jump off and go anywhere else. So Adam, do you have a dream job? I'm curious about your answer

to this question because I personally don't know how I would answer this question because I'm still trying to figure it out myself, but two parts, do you have a dream job and how do you determine what your dream job looks like or how are you working to determine what that looks like for yourself? Well, first, I would say like the organizations that I've all worked for, I have been extremely lucky because I would say up in Mystic, they rescued a manatee off the coast of Cape Cod. Um, and if the temperature dropped, like, I think it was like three more degrees in the water, she would have got cold stun. And I was able to fly to Orlando and get to be a part of that release and do a Facebook live. And then with the aquarium, like I was able to be a part of so many sea turtle releases,

clear water, able to be a part of so many sea turtle releases, introduce these rescued animals that, you know, without the aquarium's help would most likely not be able to survive on their own. So I, those things I'm very grateful for. I don't know if I can keep this ball momentum rolling. Like now I get to work in sports, whereas it's like, that's 90% of my TV anyway, and the other 10% is House of Dragons. But I think if you're talking about like a role, I would just love to see um a step for me to continue to progress like maybe some sort of digital media like strategist role where I'm

like I said I like to build things so um being able to say like you know this is the next frontier of social this is should be our plan going into it um but then also like helping continue to like oversee a team that builds out the rest of the digital strategy where it's you know whether it's facebook ads google ads uh a social media manager like i think uh one thing working with cooper um is seeing is seeing that reward of being able to work with somebody and see them grow has been super fulfilling. So I'd love to be able to further my career and say that I'm able to give my experiences that I've had in very uncertain times and facing adversity and learning something new on the fly and being able to give those experiences to someone else to help them succeed in a position.

Yeah. And that's very admirable. And I think that's incredible. So thank you for that. Just lastly, or coming up to the, to the end of the interview here, we know a lot of social media managers and content creators alike struggle with burnout. We mentioned it a little bit earlier, but is that something that you've encountered, whether that's a season of like creative block or just overall burnout as a working professional? And how have you moved through that time? Yeah, of course. It's, um, there's, there's no, there's no way to avoid it. I think at this point, um, when you're getting like the reports of your screen time and, um, you're, you know, on social media and then you get home and it's like you eat dinner, you work out and then you get on a couch and you turn on TV and then

you open Instagram and it's like, I gotta escape escape a little bit yeah yeah i think the biggest thing is taking pto right and taking pto meaningfully so um you know i i went home a couple months ago to see my parents in connecticut and was able to disconnect and um that was in part to a team being able to step in and say hey you're on vacation like take your time with your family we got this um so having a strong group around you is important um as far as like content burnout it you know it's it's a little hard um the biggest thing that like i take away that I've been doing at work lately is when it comes to those tasks that don't need to be on a computer. So like planning out my day, I write it down. Like I do a lot of things on notepads. I do a lot of things away from screens.

And then I batch a lot of that stuff that I do that is content driven. So in the morning, that'll be like reviewing the graphics that Cooper made the night before, writing the copy that goes for it, you know, monitoring our DMs, a lot of like content driven things. And then I'll build out another batch window where it's more like research driven things where I'm, you know, going through TikTok, going through the blogs, going through podcasts. So I think it's very important to build out these like very structural parts of your day and making sure that you're following it. But as you know, social media

goes, you got to be flexible. So some things may pop up, but structure is important. PTO is important and just overall, like knowing when you need a moment to step away. Yeah, absolutely. That took me a while to learn myself, especially in the world of social, because it's hard to turn it off. And even with PTO, I found myself on my brand's pages and checking them out and seeing what was going on. So I think to your point, just having the team, trusting them and knowing that they're going to take care of it and nothing's going to burn to the ground.

If you step away for a few days, I think is such a powerful note, which kind of leads to my next question and something we love to ask on this show. So Adam, what do you know now that you wish you knew early on in your career? Uh, don't put too much weight on yourself over one post um i think that there is a lot of times where i would send up a post uh it would go out like say 4 30 because i knew that's an optimal time and i get home and i do what i need to do and i check it and it's you know not performing like i thought it was there were times where i'd let that destroy my night and be like why why you know I thought that was going to work in the algorithm I thought that was going to I thought that was going to get

more comments and um you know you can't I I want to do the math on this uh being in social for like seven to eight years how many posts that I've put out, because not one has ever really dramatically shifted my career in one way or the other. It's about consistency. So I would go back and tell myself, like, don't sweat one single Instagram post or one single tweet. It's going to be all right. Yeah, that's definitely important to remember. Adam, well, we've reached the end of our interview here. Thank you so much for joining us. We'd love to let everyone know where they can find you, follow along with you and everything that you're doing with SportsCard Investor and what you're up to now. So where can we find you, follow you?

Of course. I mean, if you want to see my work, sports card investor on all the social platforms that I mentioned, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tik TOK. You can check me out on LinkedIn. Just Adam silly. It's spelled C I L L E Y. I know it's, I don't know. I don't know how it is silly, but it is silly. And then you can check out my own personal socials, but I am boring. I'm just at Adam Silly. You will see a lot of pictures of my dog Finn and you'll see a lot of sports posts. Love that. Wait, we have to know what, what are your sports teams? Who do you cheer for? Oh man. So Connecticut, Connecticut native. But then I moved down to Tampa and I love it. So this is, this is the one thing that I'm like

currently fighting with myself about, like, this is where I'm going to live for the rest of my life. I'm definitely Tampa Bay lightning. I got to meet the right answer. I think I got to stick with the red socks. I mean, I'm sorry. Tropicana field just doesn't do it for me no um and then you know I gotta I can't pick Bucs or Patriots it's just so hard like Tom Brady coming down here was just everything like it just worked so well but uh I I've probably like going to Patriot games there's like a 50-year waiting list for season tickets. Oh my gosh. So I remember when Brady signed, I like went on the Buccaneers website and I was like, yeah, you can sit, you can get season tickets wherever you want.

I was just like, I'll take them. So yeah, I, I enjoy both teams right now. Okay. Oh my gosh. I, I totally agree though with the Rays and I, I'm sorry if anyone's listening from the raise, but love my Tampa sports teams, but I was at, uh, the Yankee stadium two nights ago, which sorry, Adam, if you're a Boston fan. Um, and I was like, man, this experience, the game didn't actually happen.

It got rained out, which was not great. But, um, I was like, man, this experience is just so great compared to what we have down here. So yeah, there's some great sports out there. Sad. I am a huge baseball gal. And so it makes me, it breaks my heart that no one loves the Rays, but it's fine. I'll be here in my corner, just cheering them on myself.

It's fine. Well, thanks so much, Adam, for joining us. This was amazing and so exciting to keep seeing what you're doing with SportsCard Investor. It'll be really cool to follow along with you. So thanks so much. Thanks, Adam. Thank you. And that's it for this week.

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