By Payton Prall University of Nebraska-Lincoln Tyler Thomas, who does social media brand management at UNL, could be described as many things: an author, a speaker, a professor and a self-proclaimed foodie. But his passion is being social. Thomas, 30, lives in Lincoln and works for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as the director of integrated content in the communications department. “I look at content holistically across disciplines,” Thomas said. Thomas watches over campus and decides where, how and when to report on university happenings. He oversees social media and two people report to him. “I’m not making life or death choices, but when we share content we have to be really aware of what’s going on locally, regionally, nationally, globally so we also don’t seem that we are taking advantage of something or seen as insensitive,” he said. He gave the example of when the bombing happened at the Boston Marathon in 2013, they did not send out posts that day. Thomas makes strategic decisions from an on-the-ground position where he constantly has his eyes and ears open to what the public is saying. Because it has become so easy to share opinions via the internet, Thomas’ job is to know what people are saying about UNL and report back to the people above him so that they may decide what to do with potential negative aspects. “It’s my job to inventory what’s being said and then provide that data so people above me can make choices off of it,” he said. Since a strong social presence has become a necessity to any successful business, Thomas must help to paint UNL in a good light to attract the attention of more potential students and their families. “We now have an opportunity to share what we do in so many different vehicles,” Thomas said. The ability to share content through so many different platforms, such as Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, has widened their audience. And he communicates with those audiences on different platforms in different ways. He cannot simply plug the same post from Instagram into Twitter and get the engagement he wants. Sometimes Thomas must take an 800-word story and translate it into something that works for the platform they are uploading it on. “Part of my job is to look at a part of those stories up front and then decide how some of the media could be created or what we do so we can get the biggest bang for our buck,” he said. In order to gain the needed attention from each post, they must unpack each story and figure out the best way to tell it through social media. Although Thomas is good at his job, it did not fall into his lap. The Papillion high school graduate, who lived in various places growing up due to his father’s military status, attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He graduated in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism with an advertising/public relations focus, as well as a minor in political science. Thomas credits part of his success to the many groups on campus that he was involved in, all which helped him build his resume. Thomas was the National Student Advertising Competition Account Supervisor, a member of Ad Club, a member of the ASUN Committee for Fees Allocation, a member of the Nebraska Human Resources Institute, a Greek ambassador, as well as president of his fraternity Pi Kappa Alpha. During his college career, he interned at Scooter’s Coffee Corporate and NRC Health in Lincoln. Thomas worked as a barista for a few years at Scooter’s Coffee before eventually contacting their headquarters and building his own internship. He started off small by driving a truck with a huge coffee cup on top of it in local parades to promote new Scooter’s locations, as well as driving posters to multiple locations during his time being a marketing coordinator intern for Scooter’s Coffee. After his internship with Scooter’s Coffee ended, he then moved on to NRC Health, which focuses on healthcare products and subscription-based solutions in the United States and Canada. “I worked in one of their units doing lots of random projects that marketing interns usually get liked doing research, creating reports and such,” he said. Thomas gained networking skills at those internships. He has also furthered his education. He graduated in 2017 with a master’s degree in educational administration with a focus in higher education from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. On top of being the director of integrated content for UNL, he also has taught a high-level course at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications-Nebraska as an adjunct professor. Thomas has learned a lot working at UNL. His advice for journalists and public relations professionals is to be active. “The biggest recommendation is don’t think about you. It’s not always about you. And that’s really hard in ADPR and really hard in journalism to take yourself out of it. I always encourage people to tell the story for your audience, but have an idea of how you are going to distribute it," he said. Thomas advises to think about three main things when producing content: the story, the audience and the delivery platform. “I encourage people to think almost in an outline or maybe do the interview and then maybe figure out the best way to tell the story and the best way to share it,” he said.
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Omaha World-Herald videographer Ray Meints. Photo by Brendan Sullivan. By Sierra Karst |
A note about the content: This site showcases the final projects of University of Nebraska-Lincoln editing students. Each semester, students pick a journalist or communications professional to profile. This is their work.
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