DENVER ZOO
I was the first person to hold this newly-created role where I owned the social media strategy and editorial calendar, serving as the primary content creator. This involved managing copywriting, asset selection, and producing original photos and videos to foster meaningful engagement and drive audience growth, ensuring alignment with the brand’s strategic objectives. I wrote all content for the weekly Zoo News e-newsletter; wrote editorial pieces for the Zoo’s membership publication, “Alive;” and wrote copy for marketing products including mail solicitations, promotions, product marketing and signage. I also worked closely with the PR team to address media requests by hosting and touring journalists, plus assisting in crisis communications.
Animal births / death
Sharing important announcements about animals at Denver Zoo was both a fulfilling and challenging part of the job. A lot of behind-the-scenes coordination between PR and Animal Care went into these announcements to ensure that the correct information was being conveyed in the right way to a large audience. After the announcement of an animal birth, acquisition, departure, or death, I was responsible for the ongoing community management that could range from celebratory to contentious, and took a lot of care. During my time at Denver Zoo, I had the pleasure of welcoming a fishing cat cub, a bachelor herd of Asian elephants, a pack of wild dog puppies, and even a surprise giraffe birth. I also had the responsibility of comforting our community through the losses of Marvin the cheetah, Tenzing the Asiatic black bear, and Dolly the Asian elephant.
#TakeoverTuesday series
I led the strategy and content creation behind one of our social media’s primary objectives: showcasing the incredible care that our zookeepers showed daily to our 2,500 animals. I prioritized relationships with our Animal Care teams that developed trust between departments and allowed me to collaborate more closely with them than in the past at the Zoo. This enabled us to pull back the curtain for an ongoing #TakeoverTuesday series that I organized with each separate Animal Care team to host weekly and give an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look that had never been done before. It really resonated with our audience and helped them to understand the true depth of expertise and care at Denver Zoo. Some #TakeoverTuesday posts: a leopard check up by the Veterinary Team; a tiger intubation by the Veterinary Team; a lion rotation by the Predator Ridge keepers; and a Facebook Live with a Predator Ridge keeper.
Conservation
It was important strategically for the Denver Zoo brand to showcase not only the incredible care within our campus, but also the critical conservation work that we did both in the region and in several other countries around the world. Understanding that a lot of folks have negative views of zoos these days, we prioritized education around the work that Denver Zoo does around the world to restore wild lands, increase threatened animal populations, and reduce human-animal conflict. This education helped convert critics to supporters, allowing us to broaden our impact and continue to make a difference as a wildlife conservation leader. Learn more about a regional “Colorado Corridors” project and international efforts to prevent the extinction of the Lake Titicaca frog.
Events / programming
In addition to membership and general admission, events and programming were key revenue generators that I supported with organic social. I created content to pre-promote and cover annual events like Do At The Zoo and Zoo Lights, including working with our Development team to deliver sponsorship obligations. I also created content to support our ongoing daily programming efforts and pop-up activations to help drive repeat visitation and membership renewals.
Guest UGC
As part of my ongoing community management responsibilities, I sought out visitor UGC to interact with and get permission to repost on our own channels. This was an important tactic to nurturing our online community and building long-term brand affinity. These UGC reposts also encouraged our guests to post more of their own content, helping increase the Zoo’s reach online.
Media Relations
I supported our PR team in both hosting journalists onsite and traveling to do in-studio interviews with our keepers and animal ambassadors. This involved a high-level of internal coordination to ensure that all safety and animal welfare requirements were being followed, plus media training to support our staff ahead of interviews. We worked very closely with national news outlets, local print and broadcast journalists, and nontraditional media to pitch and respond to inquiries about wide-ranging topics that highlighted the Denver Zoo’s people and animals.