Storytelling, Social Media and Enthusiasm with Anna Affias
Anna Affias is a Designer and Social Media Director for The Bond Group in Chicago, IL.
In April, I saw that she was live streaming/tweeting a #NASASocial event in Washington D.C. NASA?! Tell me more! I noticed that her enthusiasm, curiosity and ability to navigate a community of like-minded people is magnetic. So I reached out to talk about her experience with social media, her background as a designer and much more.
From her story, it’s evident that paving your own way to success comes from a lot of hard work. But at its core, it’s about doing what you love, leveraging what you’re good at, getting involved and taking chances. Anna is way past interesting.
A wise Ad Man by the name of David Ogilvy once said, “If you want to be interesting, be interested”.
Brent: “When someone asks you ‘what do you do’, what do you say?”
Anna: “I’m a designer and art and social media director…I’ve kinda always been a person that wears a lot of different hats and I like keeping busy…I’m traditionally trained as a designer so I see everything from a visual standpoint…As far as social media, the way that it is today, no matter what the medium would be, it’s something that’s always followed me and has always found me”
Brent: “What is it that you love about social media?”
Anna: “Using design on social media, I think the mix of the two of them, they go hand in hand. They [Bond Group] brought me on as a designer to do all the design for social media…In 2012 that wasn’t really a thing. All of a sudden I was using two skills that I love — connecting people and bringing people together on a lot of different levels and then using my visual background to tell those stories. It meshed perfectly.”
Brent: “Based on your portfolio it seems like you’re a little more than just a designer, too. You’ve helped develop taglines and brand strategy as well.”
Anna: “I do a lot of branding and traditional identity projects. I take that and build out content and social media strategies for companies. I work with copywriters and other team members, too, but I do everything from making the content calendars to making the visuals and really getting the stories across a lot of different platforms.
Brent: “Was that something you saw yourself doing or did it manifest itself from the role you were in and what you were good at?”
Anna: “I sort of always knew that was kind of the direction I was going. More of the traditional branding and old school marketing — coming up with taglines and campaign strategies…
You know how when you graduate and get tunnel vision and think, ‘this is what I’m going to do and be great at’…that’s how I felt with design and marketing.
The weird part was that social media kept coming and tapping me on the shoulder saying, ‘this is how we can make that campaign that much better’…Every brand has a story that they want to tell. Then it’s matter of how they can tell that story and get that information out to as many people as possible.”
Brent: Changing directions just a bit — I read your post on The Bond Group’s blog about your adventure with NASA at Hubble’s 25th Anniversary. You went into a lot of detail about it and it seemed really cool. Can you talk about the story a bit? Why do you think you were selected?
Anna: So NASA, and what they’re doing with social, I think, pun intended, they’re blowing it out of this world. And they’re doing it with little to no funding. I learned about it when I went to SXSW last year. Tens of thousands of people apply for these [NASA Social] events…It usually takes 3 to 5 times applying before you get it, but they told us not to be discouraged…It was like a month out from the Hubble thing and I just said I’m just going to apply…I talked about my different perspective coming from a visual background and how many of the people I interact with would appreciate seeing these awesome images that Hubble is taking. Two weeks before the event, I got home, opened my e-mail and was literally screaming when I got in!
Brent: As far as your long term aspirations, what are some things on your bucket list?
Anna: I would love to start my own company, so it’s kind of figuring out what that would look like…But I would love to start slowly picking up clients and running their social platforms.
Brent: When you’re not working where can we find you? How do you decompress from the hectic life that is the marketing and advertising industry?
Anna: “…I like to push myself as hard and as far as I can to find that breaking point…I think that’s part of human existence…You’ve got to be challenging and pushing yourself to the absolute limit of what you can do while being productive. But working out is a key for me as part of my daily routine. I picked up triathlons. So if I’m not working, I’m probably training for that. I did my first one this year and absolutely fell in love with it and the community that surrounds it [Chicago Triathlon Club]…
Brent: I listen to Tim Ferris’ podcast a lot and he always ask this really great question that I’m going to borrow from him. What book would you be most likely to give someone as a gift and why?
Anna: Okay, well this is kind of cheesy, but, Green Eggs and Ham — it’s super simple and really good. Also all-time favorite poetic book — I swear I like real books too, but — Where the Sidewalk Ends. Lots of good lessons in there. And it’s weird but you can find different meanings every time you read it, depending on when you read it and what you’re going through on your day to day. It’s weird, you should try it.
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You can find Anna at www.annaaffias.com, LinkedIn or on Twitter @Anna_Affias
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