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“When you show that you have your client’s best interests at heart and when you genuinely root for their success on and off the field, then your brands’ reach is endless.” with Shahob Mehr and Candice Georgiadis

Your content is seen by so many people, that it may catch the eye of a prospective client. Everyone is one click away from being reached and showing that you have your clients best interests at heart and when you genuinely root for their success on and off the field, then your brands’ reach is endless. Your clientele are your family members, so treat them as such on your platforms.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Shahob Mehr. Shahob is the Social Media and Marketing Manager for William Raymond Communications, a public relations, marketing and crisis communications firm specializing in professional athletes and entertainers. WRC’s clients consist of the NFL, NBA, broadcasters, podcast hosts, and everyone in between who is looking to expand and protect their brand. Shahob has an eagle eye on the social media landscape when it comes to the latest trends, most talked about platforms, and pop culture to fully utilize content creation. Shahob uses his platform to show the other side of sports that you don’t necessarily see every day. He strives in building and developing relationships between athletes and the everyday fan.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I was always the kid in school who read, talked, and debated sports. And I had a close knit of friends who shared that same love and passion with me, still to this day. I didn’t know that such a career in social media and sports existed entering college nor was I sure if it was something people considered to be a “real job”. For 5 years, I worked hard and received my Bachelors in Kinesiology hoping to work anywhere in the field related to sports science.

I took a year off after graduating to work full time before realizing that I wanted to be involved in the business side of this remarkable industry. So, I enrolled at Long Beach State University’s Sport Management Master’s program (I will be receiving my M.A. at the end of January!) hoping to open my opportunities, network, and find a new career path.

While bouncing through internships, I was offered the position of Social Media and Marketing Manager by William Raymond Communications’ CEO, Lauren Renschler. Her faith and leadership skills allowed me to be myself. For the first time in my life, I can truly tell people that I love what I do. To wake up every single day to pursue your childhood passion is something that words can’t explain. All credit goes to my second family at William Raymond Communications that works tirelessly with love and enthusiasm for what they do, 24/7, 365 days a year.

Can you explain to our readers why you are an authority about Social Media Marketing?

Social Media Marketing is a round the clock, 24-hour job. You must be kept up to date with the latest trends in pop culture and in my case the sporting world. If I miss the latest highlight play on Twitter, or one of my clients’ story on Instagram by a certain time frame, then I missed out on a huge opportunity to capitalize and market my brand.

Social Media Marketing helps validate your brand and drive loyal customers/fans to your company. Often, you are the first line of interaction for anyone. Having that constant mindset of how we can organically create content has driven our success rate. We strive to not just be consistent for WRC, but for our athletes in a timely and responsible matter.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this career?

Not a story necessarily, but the most interesting thing that I have faced since starting my career has to be the general assumption that being involved with social media is simply just tweeting away or posting on Instagram, as if there’s no thought put behind it. That is maybe 1% of what a Social Media manager does in his/her day. There are so many things that goes behind the scene for my career at least. It involves being in contact with graphic designers and video editors for the best quality of photos and videos. I have to be aware of any article, good or bad that is being posted about my clients, my colleagues and I discuss our partners and sponsors that I have to be mindful of when posting something. All of these things I mentioned are under a time restriction too, if a couple hours or days pass, then I lost my window of opportunity to push something out that would’ve made a huge difference in maximizing our company’s outreach.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

The funniest mistake I made has to be the typos. The person’s username that I’m trying to tag might have an underscore and/or number eerily similar to a random stranger, but luckily we have the edit button (Twitter, we need one ASAP). The lesson learned is to double, triple, even quadruple check your work!

Which social media platform have you found to be most effective to use to increase business revenues? Can you share a story from your experience?

Instagram’s platform for sure. After all, the saying goes “A picture is worth a thousand words”. Our presence on there has been extremely effective due to consistently sending out content in a timely and relatable matter, utilizing Instagram’s algorithm to our advantage, but most importantly humanizing and making our clients relatable to the common person.

Your content is seen by so many people, that it may catch the eye of a prospective client. Everyone is one click away from being reached and showing that you have your clients best interests at heart and when you genuinely root for their success on and off the field, then your brands’ reach is endless. Your clientele are your family members, so treat them as such on your platforms.

Let’s talk about Instagram specifically, now. Can you share 6 ways to leverage Instagram to dramatically improve your business? Please share a story or example for each.

  1. Hashtags, Hashtags, and Yes, Hashtags:

Posting hashtags is the very first pillar of getting eyes on your account. I say this because think of hashtags as being the first introduction to a stranger for your profile. Find hashtags that are relevant to what you’re posting and the most popular ones related to that relevancy. Finally, post your hashtags in the comments section. It looks cleaner, more professional, and when someone happens to be scrolling by your photo, they’ll see “1 comment” instead of your hashtags spilled everywhere.

2. Utilizing the algorithm to your advantage:

Instagram favors accounts that keeps their followers engaged and active for as much as possible. So keep engaging your audience, respond, comment, like, etc. Do not repeat the same hashtags over and over, or else Instagram will throw you under the spam accounts which means less eyes on your profile.

3. Having accessory applications that aid in the professional and clean look of your page:

Having certain apps will aid and develop your account in ways that Instagram itself won’t. Applications such as CutStory help cut your videos into clean 15 second (or more) slates that help with your stories or 60 second long videos. Another one that I love to use is Adobe Spark Post which creates unbelievable visuals and helps watermark your photos.

4. Adding a location in your posts:

Putting a location on your picture and videos drives even more eyes to your profile. But it’s important to keep the location relevant to what you’re posting. Do not just tag Time Square with a picture of something clearly taken in your living room. This comes in handy for me especially when I’m posting about clients and their games. If a client of mine is playing a basketball game against the Golden State Warriors up in the Bay Area, then whatever photo I post of him will be located in Oracle Arena. Oracle Arena is relevant, related to the game, and you have thousands of fans, media, and others at home checking up on that location in real time. Relevancy in a timely matter is key!

5. Posting at the correct time:

I cannot stress how important it is to post at the correct time. I currently live on the West Coast, so I have to keep the East Coast in mind anytime I send something out. Sometimes that can possibly mean scheduling a post for 4 or 5 in the morning so people in New York, Boston, or Miami can wake up to William Raymond Communications on their feeds. More engagement stems from sending out a picture, video, or story early in the morning or late at night when people are not at work and presumably on their mobile devices.

6. The Caption:

The caption is the most fun and in my personal opinion is the heart of what your business represents. Other than what you post, your captions really differentiate leveraging a good business on Instagram from a great one. I can name several Instagram accounts off the top of my head that has kept me engaged and made me a big fan based off their captions alone. This is where you can make people laugh, get them inspired, emotional, etc. So let your creativity run wild here.

Because of the position that you are in, you are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Create, Create, Create, and Watch it Bloom

If I can inspire a movement, especially on a social media landscape, it would be to find a career that you love and enjoy every single day. Do not ever listen to someone that says your dreams are invalid.

It only takes that one person, that one opportunity for someone to see your full potential and help you take the next giant step. So go pursue that hobby of yours that you set aside and be proud to show off your work on social media. Even if nobody understands what you’re going after, they will respect your leap of faith and you will have many eyes on it.

Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Man, this is a hard one. Being the sports junkie that I am, sitting down with Kobe Bryant and just picking his brain for an hour would be amazing. He’s a genius beyond the game of basketball. His constant craft and attention to detail in regards to his outside ventures is unmatched and unparalleled with any athlete that I’ve witnessed.

Thank you so much for these great insights. This was very enlightening!


“When you show that you have your client’s best interests at heart and when you genuinely root for… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.