The Creative Rebel | Adam Aune

This week we’ve got a marketer who managed to make corporate social media fun then had to quit because of it.

This is a story of how you should allow the weird creative genius in you to roam free and fight against the corporate constraints that some may try to impose (within reason of course).

I introduce to you Adam Aune - the creative rebel at the center of this story.

Let’s get into how he ended up going from a free spirited artist to working for big corporations and fighting the mundane corporate bureaucracy.

Stick until the end to learn about Adam’s framework for coming up with innovative pieces of content that get lots of engagement.

The interview will go from Adams story to practical tips you can apply to your job to get better results. Including frameworks and tips.

Q: To start us off, tell us a little bit about how you got into marketing in the first place?

I started in high school, I began editing videos of me doing rap songs and music videos using the simplistic iMovie program for Mac.

I attended the University of Arizona and my major was Arts, Media, and Entertainment so I took many film classes, but I also had other classes where I could do videos as a project option.

Later, when seeing my skills developing into something beneficial, friends would ask me to do videos for them for various reasons. Weddings, class projects, Slideshows, you name it

I didn't really think of it as like a career choice out of school because I didn't graduate from some huge film or marketing school with some degree.

I graduated from University of Arizona in 2018; I had absolutely zero idea what I wanted to do career wise. I got a job at Enterprise Rent a Car and towards the end of my time there, I became one of the top salesman. Unfortunately, they fired me because I grew my hair long.

So I dabbled with a bunch of different roles, I was bouncing between all these passionless jobs. Then Covid hit, and we all suffered. It was not a great time to put it lightly.

So eventually, when I got the Progressive job opportunity last year: I fell in love with content creation! A bit of the persistence that went into me searching for a role like this was my father (who is my best friend and biggest supporter to this day) telling me “you can't get a job editing videos. It is not realistic.”

My response was simply: “Wanna bet?” And I guess I won the bet. He couldn’t be happier.

Q: How did you get your first job?

So big shout out to Indeed! Because of the stellar job search website: it allowed Martha, who worked for Progressive Orthodontic Seminars, to reach out to me directly. She asked me if I would like to come in for an Interview.

I actually missed the first interview (OOPS). I don't know if I got cold feet or what, but I didn't go. Martha was very understanding said “that's fine, just come tomorrow” and man, I was 30 seconds from not going again! because I just got nervous.

I even had a whole Powerpoint prepared and everything. But I said, you know what? I'm doing it and ended up going and getting the job. This split-second decision changed everything.

Q: What was it like getting your first job as a social media manager?

We had templates to do, It was structured by our original boss Yassine Chokri. He is my mentor, and good friend to this day and always encouraged me to let my creativity run wild.

We still followed the guidelines: we were instructed to edit, film, and create various posts. On the side, however, Yassine and I would shoot organic posts and original content like hotcakes.

But then I started this whole series called POS Shorts on YouTube, where it was just a matchup of all these orthodontists going into the people's mouths and those would get thousands and thousands of views. They blew up overnight.

My co social media manager, he was above me at the time, he asked, “why'd you make that? What was the point?”

I said, “I don't know. I just wanted to do it.” He ended up saying you could do the extra work but you're not getting paid anymore. But, I did not care, it was engaging content and I loved the attention we got; eventually so did he.

Unfortunately, when Yassine quit (to take another job offer) and Paul took over; that all changed. Paul hated the original content and wanted me to stick to the script. This was stressful and problematic to say the least.

But, I still did the passionless work and put in the hours, only to have side projects fall to the side and not be approved. I was stressed, to say the least.

📌 This is a really good lesson for managers out there, you can see how an employee taking initiative is being discouraged by a poorly built incentive structure.

The marketer should have been encouraged to experiment, that is where great ideas come from. Instead, the culture was built around following guidelines and not doing much else.📌

I mean, I'd essentially made that page mine just because it was everything to me, the Twitter, the Instagram, the YouTube, Facebook and even the lesser known Linktr.ee. The social media for Progressive was absolutely EVERYTHING TO ME.

We already had a solid following on YouTube. I believe we had 6,000 followers when I was hired, but now when I was done there we had a little over 10,000 which, I mean, I pride myself on 4,000.

Q: What happened after the new guy took over? How did you end up quitting?

He had this set schedule. Organic post Monday, Wednesday story, and reel on Friday. It was so monotonous.

I was going above and beyond I would do those posts and sometimes I'd put my own little spin on them. When I was with my old boss, I was just posting and posting and doing them without approval.

So the new guy didn't like that. He was old school, and he didn't think that was the way to do it. I disagreed, but I think overall, our company structure was based around that and then.

I respected that, but quit when I could not take it anymore. I would work 12 hour days only to have a video scrapped without warning and that bothered me.

Q: What is your process like for coming up with content to create?

As a creative, stuff just comes to me. I've always been a little impulsive, and I think that in creative fields for me personally, that worked really well. I am a weird guy in many ways, but that favors new ideas. I am sure many can relate.

Let’s say you tell me you want a video done about your cat. I'll just think of something weird about a cat and put it on the canvas and start editing and see if it works.

If not, something else will quickly come in my brain and I'll just kind of run with it. It doesn't even necessarily have to make a ton of sense at first, but I can build it into something that will.

Creativity is just coming up with nothing and making it something if you really look at it. It truly stems from insanity until we make it appear sane.

So that's my process. It really is simple: I take an idea, and I just keep building on it on that editing software until it looks great. I actually do my research while working, which sounds ludicrous on paper, but translates while on the big screen ( or smartphone).

That could take me 2 hours or It could be 10. It goes by like it's 60 minutes generally.

📌 What Adam is really saying here is allow yourself to experiment and follow your intuition. Some try to suppress their intuition which usually ends up ruining the opportunity to be creative.

Entertain the weird ideas you get and see where they go. Put something out there, play around with it, and improve it. Let your inner artist reign freely over your work.📌

Q: What are some of the first steps you take to build and grow a clients social media pages. Let’s say you got a Thai restaurant as a client and you have to grow their Instagram page, what are the things you’re doing to get started?

I would first go on Instagram and look up every Thai restaurant under the Sun.

I would take screenshots and notes to see what works and what doesn't work, how much organic content is being put out, how many likes each post is getting, taking. It is pretty evident which businesses have a strong social media presence and which have not put in the effort.

Notes on that and building on that is key, because you can tell what social media accounts for businesses are doing well in 2 seconds and if they're trying and if there's someone who's there to regulate them and clean up an archive post.

So I find what makes those successful and try to follow a few of the formats and create original content based on what this particular owner wants. I cater to the needs of the client.

Then I'd ask him specifically, “how do you want this marketed? Do you want it to be funny? Do you want it to be about the food? Do you want culture intertwined into all this? Do you want a personal touch?

Is it a chain, if not, are you wanting it franchised in the near future?” Questions like these allow me to see what they desire.

A lot of hard hitting questions that can be answered relatively fast makes a world of difference and put onto paper!

I would obviously post and use other social media platforms as well (top cover all the bases). It takes two seconds to post a video I did for Instagram onto Twitter so why not take a bit of time to do both?

That is it folks.

Connect with Adam on Linkedin if you have any more questions for him!

Shoot an email to [email protected] if you’d like to be interviewed for Social Managers Club or you know someone that might be interesting to interview.