Kentucky Alumni Article

Kentucky Alumni Article

Friday, October 31, 2014

A little while ago, I was featured in my Alumni magazine and I totally forgot to share it with you guys. I always get a lot of questions about what I studied in school, how I got my foot in the door and what I do for MLB. I thought this article summed it up pretty well, or enough to share it at least. Anyone looking to get into baseball as a career should always start at the Winter Meetings. networking and going to the job fair can open a lot of doors!

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From keeping up with old friends to browsing the day’s news, many of us rely on social media to keep connected. That connectivity means different things to different people. To Krista Robertson ’13 CI, it means a career, as she is a social media coordinator for Major League Baseball (MLB) in New York, N.Y.

Robertson and her family have always shared a passion for baseball, but she never dreamed she could make a living from it. “I’ve always loved sports, but I always felt like baseball was kind of a boys’ game,” she says.

She also found herself to be a fan of social media, but as she was exposed to the likes of Myspace and Facebook as they became popular, she didn’t imagine there would be career opportunities that could come from being social media savvy.

“My mom would always tell me in high school when I was on Facebook a lot, ‘You’re not going to work on Facebook when you’re older!’ It’s so crazy to see how times have changed,” she says.

Robertson decided to attend the University of Kentucky and major in communications. Wanting to create an online presence, she created Southern Shopaholic, a blog inspired by her love of fashion. To her surprise, it was a big hit right off the bat.

In December of her senior year, growing increasingly uneasy about not having any job prospects, Robertson joined a friend who was job-seeking at the MLB Winter Meetings in Nashville, Tenn. A family friend had a few connections in California, so he set her up to meet with an assistant general manager of the San Francisco Giants, who told her MLB was looking to expand its social media presence.

After the meeting, Robertson searched the Internet and located the social media director of MLB. She sent him an email and the two met later that night. Her go-getter attitude must have made a good impression. “He told me if you’re willing to move to New York after graduation, the job is yours,” she says.

After discussion with friends and family, Robertson decided this was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up. To gain experience in the business of baseball, she took an internship with the Lexington Legends her last semester as she anticipated the possibilities that lay ahead.

When spring came, Robertson gave an official interview and was offered a job starting June 1, less than a month after graduation. Today, she finds herself on a team managing social media for many baseball clubs and has gained even more responsibility in recent months. “Now I’m here and I love it, and I never would’ve expected any of it,” she says.

It seems Robertson came on to the social media scene at just the right time. Four years ago, her job didn’t even exist. Social media is increasingly more important in a technology-driven society, she explains.“If I have a problem with a brand, I’ll tweet at them, and I feel like my voice is being heard because they tweet me back,” Robertson says.

It’s that instant connectivity that makes social media so appealing to brands and consumers alike.“If you feel like you connect with the brand, you’re going to want to start supporting them and buying their products,” she says.

Since moving to the big city, Robertson hasn’t forgotten her roots. She maintains her blog, though she admits she’s had to rebrand it. “I am no longer in the south, and I’m not as big of a shopaholic since New York is so expensive,” she laughs.

Robertson came up with the idea for Covering the Bases, a fashion blog that also teaches women a little about baseball. “My idea is that hopefully my readers will dress really cute to go to a game with their boyfriend, and they know what the (baseball) references are,” she says.

Robertson owes a lot to her blog, as she notes it’s a big part of what landed her job, and says she plans to continue it as long as she’s having fun. But for now, her focus is on the majors. “I’m having so much fun in baseball that I can’t ever see myself leaving,” she says.

Robertson has a few words of advice for other young alums on how they can hit their own homeruns. “You just have to take that extra step and take a chance,” she says. “Don’t be scared. You’re talking about your dream, and nothing should scare you away from it.”

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