Let's keep it funky.
Black culture has always been it.
Hi, I'm Tori. I'm a social media producer at BET Networks.
What's up?
I'm Jeff, and I'm a video producer at Bleacher Report.
Hi, my name is Sylvia Obell,
and I'm the host of Hella Opinions at BuzzFeed News.
My name is Travis. I'm a social media producer at BET.
I'm Christy Smith.
I'm the senior manager of social strategy at Nickelodeon.
My name is Brad J. Sherrod,
and I am a social producer with the NBA.
My name is Jasmin,
and I'm a social media manager at Nickelodeon.
So, my group creates captivating content
around the world of sports.
My main duties are coming up with campaign
rollout social plans.
Writing. I write copy.
Producing.
Brainstorms and come with all the ideas.
Pushing up news articles in a engaging way
that people will click the link, and not just read the headline.
Create bite-size, clickable moments that people wanna share.
Shooting. Editing.
I help optimize content for social.
Researching different content that I can create
that will go onto our social feeds.
Day to day, I'm pretty busy.
The project I'm most proud of was a '90s hip hop parody album.
So, we took '90s Nickelodeon characters,
and '90s hip hop albums and fused them together.
Second highest like post ever on Nicksplat.
I appreciate the culture showing up.
I'm really proud of Hella Opinion.
Created by a black woman. Developed by black women.
Our production team is all black.
It's us creating it. It's a very FUBU situation,
but within a big corporation that allows us to have,
you know, the resources we need to make it a good show.
I created this video series called Spread Love the Brooklyn
Way, where we basically went to different
black-owned businesses in Brooklyn
and we kind of profiled and highlighted the owners,
and talked about black entrepreneurship.
Sometimes working in entertainment,
you get caught up highlighting the celebrities
that do everything, or you can shed light,
you know, to people who just do everyday things,
and the people who you actually do serve.
It's a very fulfilling thing.
Seeing our DNA and our imprint across all of social media
is something that I can be proud of,
because I know that we led the charge.
We were first.
You know, I don't know too many people
who, you know, work at the NBA from Durham honestly.
Its unbelievable.
One of the major hurdles is authenticity.
I used to think like this as being hard,
but we really were given the freedom and the space to create.
I think that speaks to having the black ...
Two black women as my Eps, having a woman of color
who's the head of programming at BuzzFeed News.
They really just gave us the space to be ourselves,
be black as ... on TV.
Sometimes people don't understand your creative ideas,
because they don't come from the culture.
You might not understand,
but there's a lot of people who will.
I think the common misconception in running
any social media account is, it's not run by interns.
It's white interns that run your social media,
that's false because I'm here.
People can underestimate the amount of production
that goes into the work that you put out.
And there's strategy to promote the shows.
There's a strategy for the editorial links we send out.
Social media is a top to bottom organizationally
run business that is essential to almost every brand
in every company on this planet today.
JZ said it best, right? He was like,
"We are the culture. Nothing moves without us."
I think that goes to social media, and you know,
because social media reflects the trends.
And, we're always trending because we're creating them.
It's all in real time, and it's honestly all about the culture.
And, black culture is moving everything forward.
So, as a black social media producer
you kind of get to really amplify
what's happening in black communities.
Social media in black culture is an interesting thing,
because should our culture be in on social,
buy certain brands?
Or, who are the people behind these tweets
and these posts, and what's ...
You know, like there's that whole mistrust,
which is understandable, because this is America.
I think a lot of brands try to really use the culture.
There's a lot of weird way that they'll try to imply
that they want you to sound a little fun,
or hip, or urban, whatever type of code words want to be used.
A lot of times those are the only ways that things go viral,
and it just really shows the strength of our culture,
and why we should keep it so dear to us
and not let it be watered down by so many companies.
We can all share Beyoncé,
but know that formation was for us though, that's it.
Black culture is on the spectrum,
and that there's many different types of black people
and we come in all forms,
and shapes, and sizes, and we do all sorts of things.
So, if it's something uplifting, and it feels genuine, you know,
just support, because we're fighting.
I feel like just having a voice, your own opinion,
your own say so.
Just doing things your own creative way.
That's the impact that I want to leave.
I want people to think my content is innovative.
It's creative, and it's dope.
We own soc-
We own social.
I own social. Nah. We own social.
We own social.
We own social. Period.