Bronco Spotlight: Amber Zundel
Social Media Manager at College for Creative Studies
I am part of the Marketing Department at the College for Creative Studies. As the Social Media Manager, it is my responsibility to create content for and manage CCS's social platforms. A lot of my time is spent taking and editing photos and videos to increase brand awareness for CCS. This means attending a lot of Student Affair's events, sponsored project presentations, alumni events and more. I put together a content calendar each month to ensure that our posts are supporting our other marketing efforts and run analytic reports at the end of the month to review how our posts are performing and if they're helping us achieve our goals (driving traffic, increasing brand awareness, etc.).
What is the most rewarding and the most challenging part of your job?
The most rewarding thing about my job is being able to do what I love every single day. Editing every single day, and then seeing what I created in advertisements, representing CCS, and hearing students say that my content has helped them, or that I captured the happiest moments of their college years is such an amazing feeling. The most challenging thing about my job is explaining to people what I do. A lot of the time people underestimate the amount of work and time that goes into social media. Events, editing, scheduling, content calendars, analytic reports, and creating/managing social ads takes a lot of time.
What activities, resources, or people helped you prepare for your career?
89.1 WIDR FM. While attending WMU I spent a lot of time at WIDR (the student-run radio station on campus). I started out volunteering there with the live sound team, volunteered with promotions and eventually became the Promotion's Director. As Promotion's Director at WIDR I learned how to create a content calendar, manage a volunteer-based blog, and scheduling and managing social media for an organization.
What advice do you have for students?
My advice to WMU students is to get out of your comfort zone. Hard work pays off.