Portfolio
Welcome! Here are a few samples of my creative, social, and community work from the past 3 years.
Strava | Athlete Profile
As part of the Strava Stories team, I discovered and featured inspiring athletes on the platform, sharing their stories with the community. Here’s an example of one inspiring athlete, runner Matthieu Bonne, who ran around (and around and around) a track for 24 hours straight, for a total of 177.5 miles. Matthieu was a relatively little known athlete on Strava when I featured him — but he quickly gained hundreds of new followers. The goal of the profile was to inspire the community and build Matthieu’s presence on the platform as a champion of the Strava community, increasing his follower count and expanding his reach as an authentic voice promoting the value of Strava. Read the full post here.
Liftoff | Community Profile
As a consultant for the social recruiting startup Liftoff, I launched and designed an editorial strategy for the company’s Substack. Here’s an example of a newsletter where we asked members of our community for their opinions on a topic related to the company’s mission. The goal was to start building Liftoff’s users as champions of the product and subject-matter experts, lending an authentic voice to the brand.
WARM INTRO: How do you know when you’ve found a fit at work?
Our mission is to help people find their fit. So how do you know when you’ve found it?
While not everyone may have a clear answer to this question, we had a hunch that many connectors in the Liftoff community might, given they’ve been a part of incredible teams across their careers. So we asked a few of you for your takes and loved the variety of responses we received. Read more on the Warm Intro substack…
Please Report Your Bug Here (Novel) | Book Pass-A-Long Project
Before my novel was published, my publisher, Macmillan/Holt, sent me early copies of the book. While these copies are traditionally handed out to reviewers, I wanted to give my friends an early read. So I designed a book pass-a-long, in which dozens of friends would read the same copy of the book over the span of several months before my book was officially published.
In a letter that I pasted into that book, I wrote: “This is kind of like those chain letters you used to get in your email, only it involves a book instead of a strange letter, and you only have to mail the book on to one other person when you’re finished (not ten), and you probably won’t be cursed if you don’t pass it on (but I can make no guarantees).” I stuck library check-out cards into the back of the book so that friends could leave notes and comments about the book for one another. I also included a QR code where
Almost everyone who received the book shared photos on Instagram, creating buzz about the novel and increasing my pre-order sales numbers (which are significant in the publishing industry, as they help determine how many copies bookstores will order form the publisher). I also wrote, pitched, and published an essay on LitHub about the project.
Novel | Interview with Audiobook Narrator
In speaking with readers during my novel’s promotion cycle, I noticed that many people were curious about how audiobooks are made — so I interviewed the narrator of my audiobook on my Substack to give folks a look into that process.
~~ Longer than 3 years ago… ~~
Instagram | Use Case for New Feature (Instagram Video)
When Instagram launched its Video feature, my team—a global community team of 12—wanted to inspire others to try out the (at the time controversial) feature and create their own videos. On the @instagram account, we highlighted prominent users who had been given early access to the feature and had already shared videos to their accounts. We’d featured @fosterhunting the previous year, when the community was photos-only, so he was already a community ambassador of sorts—this video, which he shared soon after the Video launch, allowed us to show that the once photos-only community was now embracing video.
Foster Huntington (@fosterhunting) is a nomad surfer who travels the country in his 1986 Volkswagen van. His Instagram photos capture moments from his adventures on the road, building fires at campsites in the Sierras and catching waves in Baja.
Now with Video on Instagram, Foster is adding sound and movement to his nomadic life and taking followers along for the ride. We can hear wind whipping out the windows as he travels along the coast and see the hammocks swinging in the trees at his campsite. "Video on Instagram lets me capture a more dynamic portrait of my life on the road," Foster says.
Want to see more of Foster's adventures? Be sure to check out his videos and follow him on Instagram @fosterhunting
Instagram | Brand Voice and Company Values
I worked with Instagram leadership to write a set of guidelines for our brand voice. The guidelines helped communicate internally at Facebook what the Instagram team meant when we called something “Instagrammy.” The guidelines cover language, tone and style, as well as content subject matter, among other things. Additionally, I worked with an outside branding agency and Instagram leadership to articulate a set of three core values for the company, which were included in a brand book we distributed to new employees and partners. [These documents are for internal use only, so unfortunately I can’t share them here, though I’m happy to talk more in depth about what the process of creating them was like for me.]
Instagram | User Feature
I assigned, edited, and wrote hundreds of features for the Instagram blog and @instagram account that featured interesting ways people were using the service, from artists and musicians to small businesses and sports teams. This post features a small-business owner who makes skateboards with unique, hard-carved designs.
Gabe Willis is a surfer—or at least he was until he moved from sunny San Diego to landlocked Oklahoma for college. Facing a sudden lack of waves, Gabe bought a skateboard and took to the streets, only to be left with a broken board after a few weeks. Rather than dip into his student budget for a new one, Gabe decided to try his hand at making one himself. Drawing inspiration from old-fashioned wooden boards and his family's engraving company, he set to work and documented his process on Instagram as he went.Be sure to follow @strght for more behind-the-scenes photos and check out their Photos of You section to see photos of their boards from across Instagram.
Instagram | Community Engagement
I organized Instagram’s first worldwide InstaMeet soon after the app launched, starting what would become a vital part of our community-building efforts. We asked people to share group photos and posted some of them to the @instagram account, which inspired others to meet up in their towns.
This past weekend, Instagrammers around the world gathered together to explore, capture moments and share them on Instagram. From simultaneous InstaMeets planned at 'twin' bridges in Lisbon, Portugal, and San Francisco, USA, (#twinbridgesmeet) to the first known InstaMeet in Guatemala (#chasingwaterfallsim), this has been the most global Worldwide InstaMeet to date!
To get a peek at what it's like to attend an InstaMeet, browse the photos and videos on the hashtag pages for these cities: Athens, Greece (#instAthens_14), Banting, Indonesia (#bantingrouteforteam), Bucharest, Romania (#instameetro), Guthrie, USA (#instameetguthrie), Istanbul, Turkey (#instameetistanbul), Johannesburg, South Africa (#instajoziride), Los Angeles, USA (#dogtownInstameet), Macau, China (#mini_omun2), Moscow, Russia (#instameetmoscow), Nairobi, Kenya (#matembezinai), New York City, USA (#rainrisenyc), New Delhi, India (#instameetdelhi), Orlando, USA (#ThePizzaMeet) and Tehran, Iran (#instameettehran2014). For more photos and videos from these and other InstaMeets around the world, explore the #WWIM8 hashtag.
Instagram | Help Center
I wrote all of the original Help Center articles for Instagram in 2010 and maintained the forum until we transitioned Instagram support to Facebook’s User Operations team in 2013. This is a screenshot of the Help Center circa 2013. It’s rather simple, but we found that this design worked better than a cluttered homepage. According to site traffic, most users wrote us about known issues and login troubles, so we gave those articles prime placement on the homepage. Although they didn’t drive as much traffic, the privacy and law enforcement articles were also included in our FAQs so that we could ensure Instagram was a safe community for everyone.
