Brooke Ihnat: Social Media Manager

By: Will Shoukri

Welcome back to another week perched in the Owls Nest! This week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Brooke Ihnat, a social media lead for American Express. Brooke is proof that you can make it right out of school. After graduating from TMU in 2016, she worked as an account coordinator at Liquid Communications for six months before moving on to AMEX where she started as a lead communications specialist. Eight years later and Brooke is now the social media manager for AMEX Canada; one of the biggest social media roles in the banking industry.

I started by asking her just what her job entailed. Many of us media students strive to breach into the social media industry but few have a clear idea of what it actually looks like.

“In social media no day is the same; social is an avenue to talk back to people.”

That essentially translates to STAYING ON TOP OF YOUR SOCIALS!

“You need to monitor your paid ads, see what the public is saying organically and lead them towards the right teams, it’s really a back-and-forth.”

Additionally, social media reps are always looking to insert their brand into other areas.

“This year we sponsored Coachella we sponsored Osheaga, Rolling Loud. When presale dropped, we received over 20k mentions saying ‘We need an AMEX card!’”

This relationship between brands and their customer’s lifestyles helps define what it means to be a social media manager.

All of this falls under what Brooke calls “Community Management.” This isn’t just replying to complaints but actually being an active part of the conversations their customers and potential clients are having.
Additionally, having strong community management is key when a crisis eventually happens.

“On the social side we don’t just cover the B2B or the consumer side; we cover all avenues of business.”

Covering “all avenues of business” sounds like a lot but Brooke assures us; it what makes it amazing.

That’s all for me this week here in the Owls Nest! I hope you all got as much from Brooke as I did, please consider giving her a follow on her socials; @brookeaihnat on Instagram and @brooke.ihnat on TikTok.

Tune in next week where I will be interviewing influencer Mitali Gupta.

Thanks for reading! We will see you next week!