Publicist, Community Manager, Social Media Manager, Managing Editor
Company Name: Ardent Studios, Ardent Music, Big Star
Dates Employed: –
Employment Duration: 5 yrs 6 mos
Location: Memphis, TN
I spent over five years as the publicist and community manager for Ardent Studios and their record label, Ardent Music, where I managed social media communities that numbered over 50,000. I created content for their YouTube channel that garnered over a million views, and our artists received many accolades on a national level from my publicity work.
Responsibilities:
- Social Media Management, Content Calendars, Analytics
- Writing, Proofing, Copyediting
- Develop and manage budgets for new projects
- Media Relations for the studio and record label
- Event Management
- Public relations
While at Ardent I also acted as the publicist for Big Star, started all of their social media accounts, and managed all media requests. During this time, Alex Chilton passed, Big Star was honored at SXSW, Ardent put out a special edition of Third for Record Store Day, the Keep an Eye on the Sky box set was released, the all-star Third performances, led by Chris Stamey and Jody Stephens, happened all over the world, and the Big Star documentary Nothing Can Hurt Me was released. I helped raise over $80,000 through crowdfunding to fund the documentary and am thanked in the credits. It was my idea to bring back and sell Big Star t-shirts, and since the original design was long gone, I took the photo of the neon sign for the new version of the shirt.
I also created and designed the Ardent Music Blog where we featured stories from musicians five days a week. Musicians wrote the majority of the content, including record reviews, stories of first records, show reviews, etc. Before it was discontinued, it had articles from hundreds of musicians. It also featured my award-winning podcast, The Warm Up, which featured three song sets recorded at Ardent Studios from indie rock’s most popular acts, such as White Denim, Danielson, Heartless Bastards, Generationals, Jenny Owen Youngs, Ian McLagen, Exene Cervenka, Dawes, Ra Ra Riot, and on and on. I produced and hosted the shows and did all of the design work for the website.
