15 Minutes of (Social Media) Fame

(There’s a relatively long lead-up to the ultimate payoff…me on video. So if you’d rather just scroll down to the good stuff, I’ll understand.)

My background is in traditional broadcast journalism — I started taking video production classes in high school and hosted a radio show my senior year (“Karma Chameleon,” baby!), majored in journalism in college and planned on taking over the world of news.

Can you spot me?

If you’d asked me 10 years ago, I would have predicted my life thusly:

• Year 1: Take job in small television market, shepherd newscast to top-rated in the market, get promoted to Executive Producer
• Years 2-4: Repeat in medium television market
• Years 5-7: Repeat in Top-10 television market
• Years 8-10: Become assistant news director in medium-to-large television market and settle into successful career

Well, it sort of happened. After graduation, I spent six years in newsrooms and control rooms as a television newscast producer — most recently in Orlando, a top-20 television market.

(Despite what you see in the picture above, I never really had too much interest in being in front of the camera. I am what you might call a control freak a detail-oriented person, and producing is the perfect job for a diva like me.)

I had aspirations of moving to Boston or New York, having my own office and being a boss.

And then — it hit me.

I could do better. I could be better. As it turns out, the higher I climbed up the TV ladder, the less I enjoyed what I was doing — no offense to my MANY friends who are still in the business. I am a storyteller by nature, and as we increased the number and length of newscasts, I watched the stories themselves disappear. The good ones, anyway.

I knew I could make a difference and become a leader in an emerging industry (social media) instead of another cog in the works of an disintegrating industry (traditional media). Luckily for me, in 2007, I made a wise decision, quitting my job in traditional television news and taking a chance with a new online media company called Bolder Media Group. We’re all TV news dropouts — a weird grouping of anchor-reporters, photojournalists, producers and Web content directors. Since we’re small and nimble, and we all believe very strongly in the power of a rabid, loyal and fanatical community, we rely in large part on social media sites like Facebook (follow us here!) and Twitter (follow us here!) to spread the good news.

That also means that a large part of my day is taken up by updating those social media sites. Which led to an interesting opportunity — ironically, being featured on my former TV station as a “social media expert” — or, as it turns out, playing the role of social media addict.

So, a reporter and photographer showed up at my office and spent about a half hour asking me about my job, the tools I use, what I think about people who call social media a distraction and more.

You can watch the finished video here with the dubious headline: “Expert Says Multi-Tasking Can Be Problematic.”

After the video aired, we decided to take the traditional media story (the TV version) and amp it up a bit. So, our Director of Video Production, Jason Morrow (another mostly behind-the-scenes guy) sat me down and asked me a few questions about being interviewed. That’s right — an interview about an interview.

If you can stand more of my facetime, check out the video (embedded below or linked here).

I’d love to know YOUR thoughts on social media — great tool or just another distraction?