ABBY HOLMAN
social strategist | digital storyteller
Nashville Sounds: Digital Marketing Manager
Music City has many options for entertainment and it is my job to entice fans to come cheer on the Nashville Sounds at First Horizon Park from April to September.
I manage the day-to-day operations of five brands across all social media platforms: Nashville Sounds, First Horizon Park, Nashville Sounds Foundation, Booster (the Nashville Sounds Mascot) and, most recently, Third and Home, a bar overlooking the ballpark. In addition to short form social copy, I also write all marketing email content as well as blog content. I also serve as the project manager for all digital communications, making sure that content is executed on time and to our club standards.
While no two days are ever the same, my goal with my role is to use creativity to build bonds between the players, coaches and community. By letting the fans see the people I get to know on a daily basis I will enhance the brand, the personal identity of the players and the city I live in.
2020 Highlights
Do we call 2020 a season? Do we call it a highlight? It's hard to say. Even without baseball, I was able to develop a content calendar that catered to bringing fans the baseball experience, from home, called "Safe and Sounds At Home".
For three months, our team brainstormed content ideas and worked to translate in-stadium elements into digital experiences for Sounds fans. These included live trivia games, a nightly Country Legends Race, including fans in the lineup, virtual fireworks shows and more. We were able to play on current events that would have been happening, such as the NFL draft, Kentucky Derby and the Met Gala.
Not only did the pandemic change everything in 2020, the week before the world went into lockdown, the Nashville community was hit with a devastating tornado. The neighborhood that our ballpark is in, Germantown, was hit hard. While the stadium somehow sustained minimal damage, apartment complexes, businesses and schools were torn apart. First Horizon Park became a donation and volunteer site, run by our staff, for the week following the disaster. I served as a primary source of communication from the moment I woke up to when I fell asleep, answering questions, updating donation requests and helping send volunteers to areas they were most needed. Over the course of the 10 days following the tornado, we reached 1.2 million Twitter followers and almost 400,000 people on Facebook. Donations poured in, to the point where we had to start send people other places because we did not have the man power to distribute the needed supplies. Local news stations pointed Nashvillans and volunteers from Middle Tennessee to our social pages to stay up to date on the latest ways to assist the community. During this time, I did not work in baseball: I worked for the Nashville community because that is who needed me.
2019 Highlights
My second year in Nashville brought a full rebrand and a new parent club. One of our main marketing goals for the year was to establish our brand identity in the Nashville community. Through intentional placement from the marks release in November 2018, we remained in the top merchandise sales for 2019.
With one season under my belt, I continued to coordinate social campaigns throughout the season and assisted in planning multiple promotional nights, one of which one received a Promotion of the Month award and another that won a Golden Bobblehead at the Minor League Baseball Special Events Awards. In addition to social communications, I also took over all marketing email communications and transitioned our staff to an integrated marketing and CRM system, establishing systems and best practices.
2018 Highlights
During my first season with the Nashville Sounds as the Social Media Assistant, I oversaw contests put on by sponsors and the league, including Logomania 2018 and Ballpark Digest's Best Ballparks in America. I coordinated the graphic and video completion, along with developing creative and engaging copy for promotional and player focused content.
During the season I coordinated weekly live videos with our broadcast and media staff, set up live scavenger hunts, brainstormed social promotions surrounding events in Nashville and highlighted the rising stars in the Oakland Athletics organization. Throughout the season I oversaw the Sounds campaign in the MiLB partnership with Stand Up To Cancer. The campaign was heavily based on the social media presence of PSAs that I scripted and recorded with Sounds players and staff. The Sounds raised the most money of all Triple-A teams participating in the campaign due to these efforts.