Q&A | Talking Twitter
Talking Twitter with Tatiana Holifield of Hulu
Each month, Talking Twitter takes you behind the scenes of some of Twitter’s most interesting publishers with the social media professionals responsible for some of the platform’s standout Tweets and viral moments. This month, we sat down with Tatiana Holifield, the head of brand social at Hulu, to talk about being your TV BFF on Twitter.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. What makes @hulu worth following?
Hulu is your pop culture BFF on Twitter. We want to be that go-to account you check when you wake up in the morning and open your Twitter — it’s the first thing you're gonna do because you want to know what's happening in TV and film tonight. Whether it’s live content or just binge-able content, we want to be that go-to best friend who keeps you in the know of everything hot and trending on your screen. That’s our wheelhouse and we want to lean all the way into that.
What does it mean to be a social media manager in 2022?
Being a social media manager in this day and age means being agile, very resilient, and open to constant change. Working in this space, you really do have to love what you do because, if you don't, you show up in a very inauthentic way. Being agile means that trends are constantly changing, consumer behaviors are constantly changing, our environment is constantly changing, and so you have to be willing to adapt with those changes. You also have to be willing to always stay on the forefront of what's new, what's trending, and what's coming up and be willing to try new things.
And that’s where the resilient piece comes in, because sometimes when you try new things [your work] is not always perceived the way you want. Especially with Twitter, which is like having this megaphone to connect with people all over the world, your content may or may not always hit, and as a social media manager, you have to learn how not to take that all personal and to learn from those experiences quickly. Also, you have to learn to lean in if [your content] is working.
How long have you been in social media? How has the industry changed since you started out?
I have been working in social media since around 2010, which makes me sound like a dinosaur, but I started early. I was working at NBC Universal, and I saw that social media was starting to take off, so I found an opportunity to work in marketing at that time. Most marketing roles were leaning towards social, and I knew that I needed to gain that experience, so I decided to go back and get my MBA. I took courses in social media and content creation and volunteered in different capacities within my role at NBC Universal. During that time, I was working on all of the daytime talk shows, so I worked with the executive producer of The Maury Show to help launch Maury’s social channels. As you can imagine, putting out “You Are Not The Father” videos grew our account tremendously. I'm definitely one of the OGs in ensuring that social media has been a part of a brand marketing strategy for a very long time.
What has changed since then is that the megaphone has become a lot louder. So many people use Twitter to create change all over the world in so many different avenues, whether it's through entertainment, for social justice, for customer service, you name it. But social media really has become this global megaphone that's more than just a marketing tool. It has become a place for growing and building communities and connecting people all over the world.
What's the most underrated Twitter feature?
The Bookmark. I bookmark everything. It's such a great tool to just save great Tweets that you see or great content. I use it as inspiration when I see people putting out great things that I can share with my team or save an event that I see or anything else. I think it is certainly an underrated feature.
And if we could grant wishes, with the exception of the edit button, what’s the one feature you’d ask for?
That’s a tough one for me because Twitter has so much that I love already, so there's not a whole lot I would change. From a Hulu standpoint, sometimes we get flooded with comments that aren’t relevant to the Tweet. I would love for us to be able to make those comments go away in some way, shape, or form.
Twitter is all about the conversation. How do you decide what conversations or replies to engage with?
For us, it’s about connecting with our audience, so we respond from a community management standpoint to comments around fandom. We love to talk TV and film because we are TV for TV people, so [we’ll engage with] any fan comments about the inside, the deep cuts around our content. Fans like to tell us that they love us or that they love a certain show, and those are the comments that we definitely reply to. We make sure to have conversations with talent and celebrities on our shows, too.
Time for a quick-fire round:
Throwing friendly shade at other account - yay or nay?
Yay.
Including more than one hashtag - yay or nay?
Yay.
Using emoji to replace words - yay or nay?
Yay.
What accounts are a must-follow for you right now?
I really love Sour Patch Kids and Xbox. I love their tone of voice. They are so relatable, and they speak with a millennial vernacular that is so relevant. They know their audience, so they connect in an authentic way. That's something that I really want us to model more.
Of course, Dionne Warwick. And, I love everything that the WNBA and all the WNBA teams are doing right now.
This interview has 280 characters left. Share a Tweet from your drafts folder with us.
Not exactly a draft, but I did want to share that we’ve been hosting some really cool Spaces celebrating Black stories and moderated by exciting co-hosts. We have more coming up, so keep your eyes open for that.
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Talking Twitter
Go behind the scenes with some of Twitter’s most interesting publishers and the social media professionals responsible for some of the platform’s standout Tweets and viral moments in the Talking Twitter collection.