Guest Speaker: Lizelle Lauron

Today, in class, we had the awesome pleasure of getting to talk to Lizelle Lauron. She is a VERY recent grad of UofL from the Communications department. She even took this class last semester (that’s how recent we’re talking). Since she graduated, her post-grad career has sky-rocketed.

She took an internship with Nick Stover, UofL’s Director of Social Media and Engagement for UofL Athletics. With this, Lizelle was able to learn the in’s and out’s of how social media works for a sport’s team. After this, she moved back to her home state of Texas and took an internship with the NBA team, the Dallas Mavericks, doing social media. Well, as of November 1, she has been hired as a full time employee as the Social Media Coordinator for the Dallas Mavericks. 

As a student, all I can think is, THAT’S AWESOME! I had never met her until today, but what an amazing way to capitalize on opportunity. If you know what you want, then work for it. 

One of the things that I found the most helpful from her guest lecture was how to make social media valuable: analytics. By looking at how a tweet or a Facebook giveaway actually affected your brand, you can tell how valuable it is. Fans are always wanting tickets or recognition by a team that they love and follow. What a better way to reach out to them then social media which is used so heavily?! And you track this using programs like Topsy or Bottlenose. Lizelle gave major credit to Dr. Freberg for this understanding because without this class she would have never even known about them. 

To me, knowing that someone was able to take an internship into a full-time position is wonderful. Its not just about the need for the position for the company. She was able to prove her worth to the cause. 

I hope when I graduate that I can become that successful and bring that much praise to such a wonderful department! 

Have a great weekend, y’all!