Biggest Challenges Faced By A Creative Social Media Manager At ESPN
Mitchell's biggest challenge as ESPN's Creative Manager, Social Media, is navigating "people dynamics" in a remote work environment, ensuring team alignment and fair treatment, while simultaneously needing to "keep an eye out for the next big tool" in the rapidly evolving media landscape. The latter challenge involves leveraging AI and new technologies to keep ESPN social ahead of the curve, a pursuit Mitchell finds both challenging and rewarding.
Communication, Teamwork, Leadership, Technology, Adaptability
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Mitchell Clements
Creative Manager, Social Media
ESPN
University of California, Santa Barbara (2013)
UCLA Anderson School of Management (2026)
Political Science, American Studies
Arts, Entertainment & Media, Sports & Fitness
Creative
Took Out Loans, Worked 20+ Hours in School, First Generation College Student
Video Highlights
1. Handling people dynamics in a remote work environment and ensuring team alignment and fair treatment are key challenges.
2. The ever-evolving media landscape necessitates constantly seeking and integrating new tools and technologies to stay ahead of the curve in content creation.
3. AI tools are rapidly developing, presenting both opportunities and challenges in social media content creation, requiring professionals to adapt and innovate.
Transcript
What is your biggest challenge in your current role?
The biggest challenge for me is handling people dynamics. We're in a post-COVID world where a lot of work is done exclusively online or over Zoom. While it's great that we can tap into different resources globally and communicate easily, some things get lost when people communicate exclusively through a laptop.
This is especially true over text, like Slack messages. The challenge of ensuring people are aligned on goals and that they treat each other fairly is something I have a very short tolerance for. I don't have patience for teammates being bad teammates for petty reasons.
This challenge isn't unique to my team; it's just people being people. So, that's a broad, big challenge.
However, for industry-specific challenges, there are many moving parts in how media is created today. A big part of my role is to look for the next big tool that will help set ESPN social apart. I have a talented and forward-thinking senior designer who agrees.
We constantly talk about new tools to integrate into our content creation. Staying ahead of the curve on that is a particular challenge. We've seen success, but I know it will keep growing as AI tools develop.