6 Questions | Social Media Specialist at Sony

Welcome back to our “6 questions” series where we ask someone 6 career-centric questions about themselves.

This week we’re chatting with Ashley Bourque, Social Media Specialist at Sony.

What is a day in the life of your role like? Is every day pretty similar or entirely different?

I am the Social Media Specialist for Sony’s brand channels. This includes Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube. All of my days follow a similar structure, but what I’m working on varies each day. I like to log on by 8:45 am so I can double-check my to-do list for the day and start going through the Facebook and Twitter feeds to catch up on anything that came in overnight. Community Management is a massive part of my job because it’s how we form a connection with our audience. I typically dive into the feeds 3-4 times a day to ensure we’re staying up to date. After checking in on the channels, I schedule any pieces of content that need to go out that day. I plan, curate, and help produce all the content that goes out on our channels. Throughout the rest of the day, I can be found meeting with the different business units (Sony Pictures, Sony Television, Sony Rewards, Sony Music, and PlayStation), looking at data to see what’s working on our channels and what isn’t, working on decks for upcoming presentations, or curating and creating forthcoming content. At the end of the day, I write out my to-do list for the next day to make sure I stay on top of what needs to get done.

What has your career path been like up until this point? How did you land your position with Sony?

In undergrad, I was interested in how businesses could use social media. I started with internships focused on marketing that allowed me to learn about how to use social media as a marketing tool. When I graduated, I landed my first job at Mohegan Gaming and Entertainment as a Social Media Specialist. I was living in Eastern Connecticut and working on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts for three different properties and one golf course. During my time there, I learned a lot about managing multiple accounts, covering live events on social, and dealing with customers via social media. After a year and a half there, I was ready for a significant change and moved to New York City, where I freelanced as a Paid Social Media Manager at HarperCollins while applying for full-time positions. After six months of job searching, I landed the job at Sony.

You manage an audience of over 12M people. What’s the hardest part about speaking to such a large audience? Best part?

The hardest part of speaking to an audience that large is that the people who make up that audience will be interested in very different things. Since I work on the Brand channels, we have people following us just for PlayStation news, just for Spider-Man movie updates, or just for tweets about Harry Styles. Making sure we’re talking to all subsets of our audience is the most challenging part of my job, but it also keeps me on my toes. The best part is getting to give our audience new content. I love working on a piece of content with a band like CNCO and then putting it out into the world for the fans to consume.

Favorite campaign or recent project that has been exciting to work on?

My favorite project that I worked on was an interview game with Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jacob Batalon. It was during the Spider-Man: Far From Home press tour, and our interviewer was unable to make the event, so I was pulled in to do the interview. I got to go to the top of the Empire State building and play a quick game with Tom, Zendaya, and Jacob. It was one of the most surreal moments in my life. You can watch the interview here.

What’s something someone might not know about working at Sony or in Social Media?

It’s more than just getting the perfect shot or creating the most engaging content. You’re going to spend a lot of time looking at data like media views, shares, engagement rates to see what’s working for the channel and what’s not. You have to understand the data to understand what content is working on our channels and what content isn’t.

Advice for anyone wanting to work in Social Media or at Sony?

My advice for anyone wanting to work in social media would be to keep up with what’s going on in the world. The conversation on social media changes in a second, so you need to be up to date on the trends and what the “next big thing” is, whether it’s a platform (Hello TikTok) or a meme that you might be able to apply to your job.