By NDA columnist Tom Ollerton, founder, Automated Creative
Katie Puccio-Williams is the Senior Community Manager, DTC Division, at Constellation Brands, focusing on social media and digital marketing in the alcohol beverages world. Combining her passion in terms of both industry and activity has led to her career success, as she explained on the latest Shiny New Object podcast.
For Katie, defining your boundaries is not just a question of having a good work-life balance and being able to stand up for yourself when it comes to taking on too much work. It’s also about setting very clear guidelines for you and for others, about what you want to work on.
Yes, marketing is an “always on” industry where there are always things to react to and you need to work sustainably, while being nimble and flexible. But it’s also an industry where, if you don’t work on what you love, you’re not going to do your best work. This is why one of Katie’s top pieces of advice, especially for those at the start of their careers, is to define the interests and priorities you want to focus on, then find the place that allows you to do that. In her words, “you’ll set yourself up for success if you love the work you’re doing.”
When you consider how you work once you’ve found the best place for you, Katie’s top tip is that “it’s ok to put yourself into the work.” Brands hire marketers for their personality and for what they bring to the table. Especially in social media marketing and community management, although you do need to vary your output and your tone based on the consumers’ needs, having your personal touch will create a better connection with consumers in the end.
A lot of Katie’s work is direct level community management, engaging with consumers on own social media channels. Through speaking to people in comments sections, she’s not making use of pre-approved responses or set messaging. Instead, although this takes longer, she will always respond to consumers with very specific and personal wording. As she puts it, this “allows you to be more relatable and more interesting and you can personalise a lot better if you’re not using canned responses.”
Listen to Katie’s other marketing tips and her overview of how advertising and marketing have evolved in the digital world in the last two decades, on the full podcast here.
The Shiny New Object podcast is a production of Automated Creative, an adtech platform that turns brands’ media impressions into marketing intelligence.
