Most Important Skills For A Creative Manager Social Media At ESPN
To secure a Creative Manager, Social Media role, a strong foundation in creative hard skills—like "creating special graphics using Photoshop"—is crucial, as demonstrated by Mitchell's portfolio showcasing NBA storylines inspired by movie posters. However, career progression to management requires developing additional skills in team leadership and "selling everyone on the big picture," a transition Mitchell describes as an ongoing learning process.
Creative Skills, Management Skills, Digital Proficiency, Project Portfolio, 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. Develop hard skills in your creative field and have examples ready to showcase.
2. Transition from focusing on individual projects to managing a team and seeing the big picture.
3. Continuously learn and adapt to new challenges and technologies, such as AI tools, that are constantly evolving in the creative field
Transcript
What skills are most important for a job like yours?
There are certain skills that get you to the job I currently have, and then there are skills you acquire to maintain it. Let's start at the beginning.
A lot of it comes down to the hard skills for creativity in general. You need to define what your craft is. For me, that was creating special graphics using Photoshop.
One big thing I did to initially get a spot on the ESPN Social Team was I created my own individual project for my own social media account. I took the posters for the best picture nominees and made them into NBA storylines. For example, "Lady Bird" became "Shady Birds," starting Kevin Durant, because that was when the whole burner account thing was a big story around KD.
I had about 10 of those ready to go. Even though I didn't make it for ESPN proper, when it came down to an interview and they asked me to show them what I could do on Photoshop, I had that ready. So having hard examples and developing those creative hard skills is incredibly important to get your foot in the door. You also need to continue to challenge and develop those skills as you move forward.
Now, if you want to get into management, I'm an advocate for saying that not every highly talented designer should manage, can manage, or is even interested in managing, because it's a completely different skillset. At the management level, yes, you still need foundational knowledge of Photoshop and whatever other tools your team uses. Honestly, that's changing day by day with AI.
More importantly, it comes down to whether you can manage a group of people and get them working together in the same direction to accomplish different goals. It's been a transition for me from completely focusing on individual projects, nailing them, and getting a lot of pride out of that. Now, it's become taking a step back, seeing the big picture, and trying to sell everyone on that picture and their role in it.
That's been a big piece of development for me. Admittedly, I'm still figuring it out. It's still relatively new, within two years. I know that sounds like a long time, but I'm learning something new every single day in terms of those kinds of challenges. I think those are the new skills I'm learning to develop now.