National Sculpture Society is increasing our social media and marketing audience.  For input, the Society has hired Brandstanders, a student-run agency through New York Institute of Technology (NYIT).  The agency is overseen by Adjunct Assistant Professor Julia Price and Adjunct Assistant Professor Dr. James W. Wyckoff, APR.

The partnership with Brandstanders started in October 2018.  The NSS staff met with students to discuss the Society’s mission, members and current marketing procedures. From there, four students, Darian Kowalyk, Céline Rondy, Rebecca Huang and Account Executive Ilker Uralgil, created and ran a PR campaign for the Society.  The team set out objectives to increase awareness of NSS’ scholarships and awards, to increase engagement across NSS’ social media platforms and to increase engagement with our members and aspiring sculptors.  To accomplish these objectives, the team identified trending hashtags, designed creative images and filmed videos. The first of these videos, featuring Eric Durant, has been viewed over 500 times.

The next partnership began in February 2019, with Céline Rondy serving as Account Executive and Rebecca Huang returning to the team.  They were joined by Ashley Mcaleer, who later served as an intern at NSS. The trio focused on creating ‘quick fire’ interviews with members from across the country.  One of their Facebook posts, featuring Louise Peterson, FNSS, reached over 3,000 people.

The most recent partnership was with Account Executive Veronika Nemcova, Yasmine Safouane, Trent Evola and Victor Zeitoun.  The team focused on NSS exhibitions and filmed interviews with sculptors Kate Mikhailov and Judy Salinsky during the California Sculpture Exhibition.  The students, with the assistance of another NYIT group, edited the interviews.  The resulting film has reached over 800 people on Facebook and is also on NSS’ YouTube channel. The team also created NSS’ first ever Instagram stories.

The hard work of these students has had a significant impact on NSS’ social media following.  During the three NYIT semesters, our Instagram followers increased by 72%.  The NSS staff and Board of Directors is grateful to the students, Brandstanders and NYIT for their inspiration and efforts.