Nilam Patel
Nilam Patel, 2012, History
Social Media Manager – The Ohio State University
Please provide a few sentences to say what you do in your job.
I’m a social media marketer who specializes in higher education/alumni relations as well as digital fundraising.
What advice would you give students who have an interest in marketing/advertising?
Create a new email account and use it to sign up for all email comms and follow the social media channels of your favorite brands. The only way to stay updated in this space is by reading and listening to everything. There are courses you can take and textbooks you can read, but some of my most successful campaigns have come out of “testing” what works and doesn’t work.
What WFU career resources did you utilize that were most helpful to you?
TBH, I didn’t utilize many “official” resources but the relationships that came out of Wake Forest really helped me.
What courses, activities or experiences gave you an edge in the job search process?
Student Government, The Wake Forest Fellows program, President’s Aides
What specific advice would you give regarding effective networking?
This is higher ed focused but HighEdWeb is a great professional organization, and this FB group is very useful: https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/higheredsocial.
Any additional insights?
Be prepared to fail and to recognize that it’s not a bad thing. We can’t predict how our audiences will react, so we have to take some risks — but how will you know what works and what doesn’t if you don’t test your market? Because when it works, IT WORKS. For example — I am responsible for selling The Ohio State University’s collection of wines that benefit student scholarships. Our sales were pretty low from November 2019 – April 2020. While the goal is to raise money for student scholarships, we also need to get rid of our inventory. When COVID-19 hit, I changed the fund from student scholarships to our COVID-19 relief fund and put $1500 into FB and Instagram ads. I sold more bottles in 6 days than I had in 6 months.