Shannon McGarrigal King, SVP Digital Content Partnerships
& Social Media at A+E actually began her career in banking where she honed
her skills in general business management. But she soon realized that, while she
wanted a career in sales & marketing, “that banking was not nearly as
interesting to me as media & entertainment.”
So King left banking and entered media where she worked for
both a series of digital start-ups
beginning with Moviefone (later acquired by AOL), and then leading digital
sales innovation and integration within established media companies such as
Yahoo! and Time Inc. As COO, she then lead Levo, a career navigation network
which helps young millennial women in the first years of their career establish
networks, gain mentors and create a professional foundation. From there she
accepted her latest opportunity – helping to create a new short-form &
social media agency for the highly regarded and strongly branded A+E Networks.
Charlene Weisler:
What are your responsibilities at A+E?
Shannon King: I am responsible for the distribution and
monetization of short form digital-first content as well as managing the social
media platforms for all of the A+E brands.
At the heart of A+E Networks we are a video storytelling company. 45th
and Dean is our new dedicated effort to tell those stories on platforms beyond
the linear TV format. Through careful
and strategic use of data, we help enable the development of digital and
social-first content as well as determine the best platforms to distribute it.
Charlene Weisler: Tell
me about 45th & Dean.
Shannon King: 45th & Dean is a multi-platform
video storytelling hub and full service studio and social media agency. We
develop short and mid-form video content for our brands and our advertising
partners. The name comes from a combination of where our headquarters are
located on 45th Street in Manhattan and where our new production
facilities are located on Dean Street in Brooklyn. We are a team of
award-winning social, digital and television talent whose goal is to reimagine
brand stories by integrating advertising partners’ messaging with A+E Networks
characters, shows and themes for audiences across all platforms.
Charlene Weisler: How
does Analytics and Data factor into your mission?
Shannon King: Analytics and Data are at the core of
everything we do. We analyze the performance of our content using real-time
analytics and adjust accordingly. We put the content out there on Facebook, for
example, and see how it works. Then we learn from the data results, adapt the
content and push it out again – learn, adapt, push. What we are finding is that
different content works on Facebook as compared to Twitter as compared to
Snapchat. We look at each of them with a different lens. What is the audience
and what creative works best? What business model makes the most sense?
Charlene Weisler:
What are the differences you see across the major social media platforms and
how do you use them to give your brands a voice of their own beyond individual
shows?
Shannon King: You can’t ignore the sheer scale of Facebook- We
typically use Facebook for video and mass reach. Twitter is great for live
events such as the Critics’ Choice Awards, etc. often as a companion piece to
other content where we can use talent directly to promote and interact with
fans. Snapchat works well for talent engagement and behind the scenes. Since
this content disappears quickly it feels exclusive to our fans. We also use
other sites like Reddit which offers a deeper dive about a certain topic.
Recently we covered the DB Cooper mystery and used Reddit to continue the
conversation via live chats.
Up until now we used social media as an extension of our
shows to drive tune in. Moving forward,
we are focused on organic conversations relating to themes that give each of
our brands their own voice. Examples are – Lifetime and our Fempire campaign
about strong women and equality for all, while History which is about people
and their stories. We focus on the tenets, the core themes related to each
brand and how to ladder to that theme. The digital versions of our brands have
an identity of their own. They are not just used to send promos out. The
audience is different for each brand, and they expect different content and
experiences from each platform. Social media can be used to share memories that
are common to us and allows our audience to participate. An example is our 9/11
programming. We can run a full length documentary on air, and then compliment
the experience by utilizing an Instagram gallery to invite viewers to post
photographs relative to the content with a hash tag. It enables us to allow our
viewers to participate in the storytelling by remembering.
Charlene Weisler:
What are some of the challenges that a traditionally "TV-centric"
media brand has to overcome in a digital first consumption environment?
Shannon King: Powerful brands like A&E and History are so
well associated with TV that it’s hard to get people to think of them in any
other way. That’s a huge challenge for us. At the core of A&E, History and
all of our brands is excellent storytelling. We understand that consumers want
to interact differently on different platforms with our content. So long as we
continue to tell compelling stories with this in mind we’ll be sure to deliver
the premium content our fans expect from us across all screens.
Charlene Weisler: What are the advantages that your linear
platforms bring to your social and digital platforms?
Shannon King: For me, combining TV and digital is the Holy Grail
in my career. I have a digital background and being able to tap into the linear
space is an exciting prospect. The two are the perfect complement to each
other, they boost each other. Being disruptive in the digital and social space
is a challenge and to have access to powerful brands, programs and talent is a
huge advantage. TV is one of the biggest drivers of conversation. Digital and
social publishers rely on it whether they have their own linear property or
not. Luckily we do and we’ll continue to use our linear, digital and social
platforms together in an effort to deliver engaging360 degree experiences and
conversations for our audiences.
Charlene Weisler: How
do you achieve work/life balance?
Shannon King: I laugh every time I get that question and believe
that balance is a misnomer and sets the wrong expectations for men and women
alike -it’s more like juggling or integration. There is never a perfect “balance”
because every day is different. You can’t say that you will do the same things
at 9a or 5p every day. Life-- neither at work or at home-- is simply not that
predictable. To be successful, one needs to be able to constantly reassess the
priorities of the day or hour and realize that in fact each layer of your life adds
to the other with a compounding effect. Finally, we all need strong support
systems both at home and at work.
Charlene Weisler:
What advice would you give the next generation of media executives?
Shannon King: Say yes first and figure it out later! You can do a lot more that you think you can
do. Say yes. Then you can decide how and even if you like it, but you don’t want
to look back and say “I wish I had tried that.” Say yes first and figure it out
later.
This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com
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