montanajournalism Best Practices for Journalists on Social Media

Social Media Best Practices: Q&A with Missoula Children’s Theatre’s Abigail Gilbert

By Sarah Hibbard

Abigail Gilbert has been working for the Missoula Children’s Theatre home office since 2019. Originally from Duluth, Minnesota, she received her undergraduate degree from North Dakota State University (NDSU) in Fargo, ND. She double majored and received her BFA in Musical Theatre and Public Relations & Advertising. While she has spent much of her life as a performer, director, and teacher in the arts, professionally, she has worked in the marketing and advertising space in several capacities.

University of Montana student Sarah Hibbard recently interviewed Gilbert about her social media work. What follows is a transcript of their conversation, edited slightly for clarity and brevity.

Q: What was the process of finding this job? How did you hear about it? Did you have experience in social media before taking the job? How long have you been in the position?

A: Before taking this job, in college, I worked as the Publicity & Recruitment Student Assistant for NDSU’s Theatre Department. This involved meeting with prospective students, working on the marketing team for the theatre department, and running our social media channels, along with other duties. This job, in conjunction with my Public Relations & Advertising degree, helped me prepare for the professional world of marketing and social media. Before I found my current position at MCT, I worked for MCT as a Tour Actor/Director, so I was already familiar with the company and the mission. When I saw this job announced, I thought I would be a good fit due to my social media, graphic design, and marketing experience. I got the job and relocated to Missoula. I just celebrated my five-year anniversary with Missoula Children’s Theatre!

Q: How is running the company Instagram different from running a personal Instagram?

A: Running a company Instagram is very different than running a personal Instagram. Of course, when running a company Instagram, you’re representing an entity bigger than yourself, and you’re responsible for the content that comes out of that entity. It’s important to consider company voice on our company Instagram, whereas on your personal Instagram, one only needs to be concerned about their own voice. Our brand is very whimsical, fun, heart-warming, and impactful, so I always keep those aspects in mind when representing our company voice on social media.

Q: You have a pretty wide-ranging audience on social media, from children and parents to young working actors/artists, how does that impact what you post?

A: This is one of the trickiest parts of my job. We have a large local audience through our community series and youth series here in Missoula, but we also have an International audience through our Red Truck Tour – so what that means for me is that a lot of different people are interested in keeping up with a lot of different programs that Missoula Children’s Theatre has to offer. We have so much programming here that serves so many different audiences, so that means that I spend a lot of time differentiating between programs through posts. One way that I navigate this is by tailoring each post with proper branding so that folks know which program we’re referring to in each post. For example, if I’m posting about our upcoming kids show, I make sure to use our “youth series” banner somewhere in the photo or post so that it’s clear that it’s a kids show.

Q: Is there any story-telling involved in posting?

A: Yes, so much storytelling! One of the special parts of Missoula Children’s Theatre is the impact that we have on our local community and beyond. We often hear about how people’s lives have been changed by this organization (which is so cool!), and we love to share that on social media. Social media is all about connecting and hearing stories from others, and we have an abundance of stories to share. Whether it’s a story about how someone has been impacted by our Red Truck Tour, a volunteer who has spent 280 hours this past season (a story that we just shared!), or a family who is involved in one of our shows, we love to share stories on social media. Of course, we are a business trying to sell a season and get people to register for our programming, but most importantly, we are a mission-based organization full of impactful stories!

Q: What would you say is the most important thing to consider when you are putting a post together?

A: A call to action. I always, always, always, have a call to action in my posts – whether it’s to buy tickets, book a tour week, register a student for an upcoming program, or join us for an upcoming event. On occasion, there’s no call to action involved, and I’m just sharing a fun experience that we had, but I try to make those posts few and far between. Even if it’s a heartwarming story that I’m sharing, I like to make a call to action part of the story as well.

Q: What is the most difficult part of your job as Social Media Manager?

A: THE COMMENTS! You can control what you post, put you can’t control how people perceive it or react to it. Of course, that happens in real life, but on social media, there’s a clear place to comment if you don’t agree. It can be frustrating if people don’t understand a post or ask questions that we wish they would just email us directly, but it’s part of the job!

This Q&A is part of a series created by students in Courtney Cowgill’s Social Media and Audience Engagement course at the University of Montana School of Journalism. Students sought out creatives who are doing using media for good to offer tips and insights into the ever-evolving landscape of social media.

montanajournalism Best Practices for Journalists on Social Media

Social Media Best Practices: Q&A with Mallory Ottariano of Shop Youer

By Kelsie Ring

Mallory Ottariano, Founder and Owner of Shop Youer in Missoula, MT has a social media presence that has made an impact, both in her business and community. Mallory bought a sewing machine in 2012 and began making clothes and designs in her parents basement. By using thrifted materials to create, she carried this on until finding a space finally to create her clothes.

Of course then 2020 came along, which inspired her to rebrand and rebuild after the chaos of the pandemic. With a new name, and a new factory, Shop Youer became a team of individuals making all designs and pieces right in the U.S; something more and more difficult to find. Mallory uses her social media to share what it’s really like being a female business owner doing all operations in the U.S., while still marketing her brand in an authentic way.

University of Montana student Kelsie Ring recently interviewed Ottariano about social media and what follows in a transcript of their conversation, edited lightly for brevity and clarity.

Q: We know that social media marketing is huge on our platforms today, but how do you approach social media to tell a story about your brand rather than just selling something?

A: I really believe that people buy from people, so for my strategy it’s all about building trust. Nobody really NEEDS our clothes. They want them. So we don’t need to sell the product to them, we just have to create a great relationship with people so that they choose to buy from us. At the end of the day, I’m still selling – I’m just selling a closeness that’s created through educational content and bringing the customer into the journey.

Q: When it comes to social media, what is one practice that you do that always seems to find the right engagement? (IE- videos of you talking, interesting graphics, fun photography?)

A: 90% of the content I put on social is video, and the videos that always engage the most are my series called Slow Fashion Math – it’s a once a month video where I break down every cost that goes into making a specific item of clothing at our factory here in Montana – a different one every month. They’re insightful, thought provoking and often kind of shocking!

Q: Our society can get caught up in the likes and stats of social media, but how do you receive feedback about the power of your social media outside of that?

A: I totally get wrapped up in the stats too, but I think the most important measurements for me are 1) awareness outside of social. When someone recognizes our clothes or people who work for the brand outside in the wild that’s super cool and validates that our reach is powerful. 2) when people comment about how much they’ve learned about how to be a mindful consumer! I love when we get to see the impact our content has on people.

Q: What is the most challenging part of telling a story through social media? What parts are the hardest to convey and which parts do your audience struggle to resonate with?

A: A challenging part of storytelling is when your content ends up getting in front of people it wasn’t made for. When a video goes viral, inevitably there are lots of people with lots of judgy comments. Often, our Slow Fashion Math videos get in front of lots of people who have a lot of opinions about why we shouldn’t make clothes in the US. But honestly, every bad comment means greater reach for us! The hardest part is knowing that you’re vulnerable to criticism. As the ‘face’ of the brand on social, I’m an actual person who people can attack which has been hard to deal with sometimes. But I’m learning to disconnect the comments from the emotions.

Q :If you could give one piece of advice to someone who wants to truly showcase the story behind their brand on social media, what would you say?

Mallory: Consumers are thirsty for content that doesn’t waste their time – give people something tangible and interesting to sink their teeth into. And give your marketing a face. Put someone in front of the camera and start establishing relationships with your community – it will totally pay off. Don’t worry about being perfect, imperfection and ‘realness’ is what forms connection.

Q: When starting your social media journey, did you want to lean into story telling or did that just come naturally?

Mallory: It just came naturally! It felt really silly to try and write canned captions for photos that fell flat and didn’t engage. I love writing, and there’s so much that goes into our work so I wanted to share that with people because I’m a consumer who likes learning too.

Q: How would you say the engagement of your “paid ads” vs your non paid content play out?

Mallory: Until last month, we had actually never run paid ads – it’s a really new thing for us! And the ads we run are actually pieces of high performing organic content that we then turn into ads. So really, the relationship is synergistic – we wouldn’t have high converting paid content without strong organic content.

Q: Finally, what is one social media “practice” that you think would bring much more positivity to the social media world?

A: I think social media can be a really positive place! Of course, every platform has its dark corners, but when people voluntarily hit a button to follow you, they’re signing up to see what you’re doing because they like it. It’s easy to take negativity personally, I’ve certainly done it, but when you stop and reframe ‘troll’ comments as just ‘algorithm boosting’ actions, then the whole thing becomes much more lighthearted. We’ve taken troll comments, rolled with them to make new content and gotten soooo much more reach and attention with them than we ever expected to.

This Q&A is part of a series created by students in Courtney Cowgill’s Social Media and Audience Engagement course at the University of Montana School of Journalism. Students sought out creatives who are doing social media for good to offer tips and insights into the ever-evolving landscape of social media.

montanajournalism Best Practices for Journalists on Social Media

Social Media Best Practices: Q&A with Content Creator Gil Shur

By Seth Pytleski

Gil Shur is an entertainment content creator who focuses on popular and indie films/television shows on his YouTube channel: OneTake. Shur has accumulated over 229,000 subscribers on YouTube for OneTake and his most popular video has more than 24,000,000 views. The channel has a variety of different types of content including entertainment news, recaps, analysis videos, and podcasts Shur hosts with his brothers.

UM Journalism student Seth Pytleski recently interviewed Shur over email about his use of social media and specifically the platform of YouTube, how he found success and what he has observed during his career. Below is a transcript of their conversation, edited slightly for brevity.

Q: Outlets/channels that cover entertainment often use outrageous controversies and celebrity gossip that surround a cultural product to get attention, have you ever been tempted to use this angle? Why or why not?

A: I’ve never been tempted to use that angle for a few reasons. One, I spent many years before YouTube working in jobs where I would often have to do things I do not enjoy. Part of my motivation for making YouTube my full-time job was to minimize the time I spend on things I do not enjoy. So, I have a very strong bias against compromising my integrity or desires for a potential short-cut to views.

I try to maintain a positive environment around myself and focusing on outrage, controversies, or gossip would achieve the opposite. Thankfully, in my experience with YouTube, there are basically infinite paths to success. So, as long as you are patient, committed, and always looking for ways to improve, you can select the best path for you. Not every day will be 100% positive or easy, but you can definitely avoid going out of your way into negativity.

Q: Your bigger videos are mostly related to huge franchises like Marvel or The Matrix, but you also find success in more niche categories, talking about smaller movies and television shows. How do you strike a balance between appealing to a wide audience and talking about things that are important to you?

A: Thankfully, my tastes are fairly broad, so it does not feel like a compromise when I talk about genre stuff like Marvel. Even when Marvel movies are dipping significantly in quality, I can still enjoy them as a puzzle (the problem solving part of me has a fun time trying to piece the movies together on a timeline, for example) or as an intellectual exercise (i.e., why don’t these movies work as well as some other ones?).

Having said that, my success in the big franchise stuff usually comes from my timeline videos. I enjoy making them but they are not as intellectually or creatively stimulating as video essays, reviews, or other analysis/opinion-based videos. That is where I do have to find a balance. So, I basically approach it the same way many filmmakers approach their careers with a “one for them, one for me” mentality. I’ll make a timeline or two since they bring in big audiences and I do enjoy making them, but before I tire of timelines, I change things up with a retrospective or WIRBA (What ___ Is Really About).

I often try to make a formula out of it with schedules/spreadsheets, but it also just comes down to listening to my feelings/energy levels. If I’m not up to making a particular video, or something smaller/more niche excites me, I don’t fight it, I follow that feeling. Thankfully, YouTube-ing is a career that allows for that kind of flexibility.

Q: The YouTube algorithm is infamously complex and constantly changing, what steps do you take to make sure your videos will find an audience?

A: I honestly do not think too much about the algorithm. Many big YouTubers and YouTube themselves will tell you to get rid of the world algorithm from your mind and instead use the word “audience.” At the end of the day, the algorithm is just trying to follow the audience and give them what they want. That makes things pretty simple for me strategically. It comes down to A-B testing. I started the channel by trying many different types of videos. Some of them worked better than others so I did more of them (at first this was reviews of individual episodes on a TV show). While continuing to do individual episode reviews, I continued experimenting with other formats, then found that theory videos were even more successful, so I started doing those too.

At that point, I did TV episode reviews and theory videos, then I continued to experiment… I eventually discovered that video essays/analysis videos were even more successful than theory videos. Not just in terms of views but also in terms of their relevance over time. I.e., a TV review is relevant for a week until the next episode, theory videos are relevant until the show proves or disproves your theory, but an analysis of a character or a show/movie’s themes is evergreen. That video will be relevant as long as people care about that show or movie. In business terms, it becomes part of a portfolio that can generate revenue for months or even years vs other videos that generate revenue for a day or a few weeks. This was a crucial discovery for transitioning into YouTube full time.

I could keep going but the bottom line is you will never understand the total inner-workings of the algorithm (I doubt YouTube themselves even understands it fully). But, you don’t need to. You show your audience different things. See what works. Do more of what works while continuing to experiment because even if thing A works, you never know if thing B will work even better.

Q: You have amassed almost a quarter million subscribers on YouTube, yet only have a little over 300 followers on X/Twitter—what is the reason for that discrepancy? How do the two platforms differ in terms of gaining a following?

A: That’s a great question. My theory is that in general, my most popular content is pretty impersonal. For example, I gained over 50K subscribers from my most popular video, the recap of every Spider-Man movie. Think of the people who watched that video: they do not know my name (only the name of my channel), they do not know any of my opinions, they’ve never heard me make a joke, they’ve never seen my face, etc. To them, I’m a disembodied voice who summarizes some movies they like. Twitter/X or Instagram, etc. are places you go to follow a personality: to hear their opinions, observations, etc. That’s a very different offering from the video which introduced me to those viewers.

In general, when people discover a new channel or personality they like, I think their instinct is to go looking for more of the content that got them hooked on that channel/person in the first place. So, if someone finds OneTake and enjoys my Spider-Man Recap, it’s an easy sell to say “Hey, you should also check out my MCU Timeline.” But, “Go follow me on X” is a harder sell. They know X will not provide more of the same (i.e., they will not get super detailed, long-form recaps on X).

To me, the proof is that almost all of my Twitter followers and Patrons came from 2 – 3 years ago when we were doing the podcast Saulcast. Podcasts are heavily personality-driven. It’s a casual conversion where our personalities, senses of humor, observations, etc. are fully on display. People connect with us as people in an almost social way. So, of course, this more readily lends itself to followers on social media.

My retrospective videos where I’m on camera more, offering opinions/analysis, and my recent attempt to start podcasting about movies are both attempts to cultivate more of a community/social presence.

Q: How important do you think marketing yourself on social media platforms outside of YouTube can be for content creators?

A: I think it totally depends on the type of content creator you are. As you can see with OneTake, I’ve been able to find success on YouTube with virtually no presence on other social media platforms. As much as people hate the algorithm, the beautiful thing about it is that it creates a discovery engine. I can put videos out on YouTube and it will do the work of getting it in front of people. So, in that sense, it has not been important to me at all. I think that is true for a lot of YouTubers.

However, I’m sure that depends on the type of content creator you are. I.e., if you are heavily opinion-based and discussing current events, I’m sure having a presence on X would help you gain even more followers.

There’s also the question of diversification: it’s a little scary having YouTube as a sole source of income. What if my channel were to get shut down tomorrow? I would essentially have to start building again from scratch. However, if I had a following on social media, I could start a new channel, potentially on another platform and some percentage of them would follow me there.

Q: How do you think some of your colleagues fail at using social media responsibly?

A: In real-life conversations, there is a lot of leeway to sort of “test” ideas outloud. If I’m talking to close friends, we might throw crazy ideas, theories, or opinions out there just to talk them out and see if they hold any merit. Or, if there’s some big news headline, we might say our immediate reaction/opinion out loud before actually reading the article and giving it real thought. After talking things out, reading more, or thinking about things further, we often come to a conclusion that differs totally from our original one.

However, on X or similar platforms, I think people follow the same impulse… They see a headline and throw an opinion out there without fully thinking it through. That might be okay in real-life between friends where you can change your opinion later, possibly even in the span of one conversation at no cost. But online, that initial reaction is there… People will respond to it, share it, retweet it, etc. Even if you change your opinion later and delete that original tweet/post, it still exists in everyone’s minds. That can change the way people look at you, contribute to the spread of inaccurate information, etc.

It’s hard to know where exactly to draw the line in terms of responsibility. There probably should be a degree of leeway in “talking things out” online the same way you do in-person. But, you can also cross a line of posting irresponsibly… I.e., it is okay to be ignorant on something, but on certain important topics, maybe if you are ignorant, you should not post with conviction until you have actually done the research or discussed it privately.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to share about your experiences working with the internet/social media?

A: Just that I love it. I love that it has democratized the media. Growing up, I loved to watch TV and Film. I loved the idea of making “content” myself but it felt impossible. I did not conceptualize human beings actually making this stuff, it just magically came out of my TV or movie screens. As I got older, sure I realized there were people working on these things but it was always presented as a “dream job”. Something not worth pursuing unless you are absolutely insane and special.

Things like YouTube have changed all that. There is now a path for virtually anyone to share their creativity with the world in a virtually infinite number of niches- as a hobby, part-time job, full-time job, or anything in-between. As much as people often focus on the dangers of social media, etc… There is also undoubtedly something amazing happening. We have to remember how new all of this is. In the grand scheme of human history, it is all so so new. I’m hopeful that over the next few decades, we’ll find a better balance and healthier ways to integrate the internet/technology into our lives. I’m picturing less phone addiction, less hate, etc. More education, creativity, and community.

This Q&A is part of a series created by students in Courtney Cowgill’s Social Media and Audience Engagement course at the University of Montana School of Journalism. Students sought out people in media who are doing social media for good to offer tips and insights into the ever-evolving landscape of social media.