Today we’d like to introduce you to Tod Meisner
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Upon graduating from Illinois State University as a Mass Comm major, I began my career in sports communication/sports information at the collegiate level. My journey began in college athletics as a sports information director with stops at SMU, the Missouri Valley Conference and Conference USA.
While I made a strong impact within college athletics, I also created relationships early in my career with professional organizations. I worked for both the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks in the early 2000s and continue to work Maverick’s game day stat crew to this day.
I left the collegiate athletics space in 2010 and briefly worked for a boutique PR agency in Dallas before beginning a 5-year stint at Associa in Dallas. While there, I worked my way up to Digital Marketing Director and helped Associa launch is social media presence in 2010 and overall directed the company’s digital marketing strategy and day-to-day digital marketing execution.
I moved to Auburn, AL in 2011 and once again found myself in the agency space and served as Director of Client Leadership for Verge Pipe Media. I served higher education clients and helped them adopt and expand their usage of HubSpot, while also working to help land new clients.
This role was challenging in such a small marker and after 18 months I moved once again to industry and began my tenure at Aflac. Working my way up through the brand and national advertising team, I concluded my term as Brand Manager. As brand manager, I developed and formulated the company’s social media key strategies and executional deliverables that supported the overall brand and national advertising strategy, core brand promise, program/campaigns and overall business objectives.
What does that mean, well I spent my days leading and driving the company’s social media strategy. I rebuilt Aflac’s social media strategy from the ground up and grew Aflac’s connected community on its main social media channels, most recently launching the brand’s TikTok strategy in 2022.
In April 2023, I joined the Corporate Communications team at State Farm. In my role as Sr. Analyst, I’m responsible for identifying and improving the brand’s communications goals to drive business and communication efficiencies. My detailed reports are used to provide actionable insights to various business partners across the enterprise to make data-driven decisions and communications improvements.
In addition to my day-to-day duties for State Farm, I teach undergraduate and graduate level classes for Auburn University, Arizona State University, West Virginia University, the University of Florida, Southern Methodist University and New York University (NYU). The courses focus on social media campaigns and engagement for public relations as well as, branding, advertising, and digital marketing.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has been far from smooth. I often use the phrase “your career is like a jungle gym” And even wrote about this topic here: https://todmeisner.com/your-career-may-be-a-jungle-gym-and-thats-ok/
The biggest struggle I faced was being let go from my job in January 2015. I had just finalized a divorce and moved into a new house and then BAM, was called on a Friday afternoon and let go out of the blue. I had to really look in the mirror and figure out what might have gone wrong, how to proceed forward and how to rebuild my network.
The biggest lesson for me coming from that setback was that I had let my network wither. It’s paramount that you keep your network fresh and keep your relationships strong. They need to be relational, NOT transactional so that when the time comes that you do need something, the ask seems genuine and not desperate. Unfortunately, in 2015 I learned the hard way that transactional is not the way.
The next time I was on the job search in 2017, I had done a better job of keep my networks strong and while it was still a long search, it didn’t seem so perilous as the first time because I was able to land some part-time work and keep my network and pipeline stronger.
I say all that to say, you will always face struggles in your career. And the path won’t often be linear. But, id you keep a strong network and focus on relationships, you will have fewer struggles or low points than most.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
At current I cosplay as a data analyst. I’m a communicator and marketer mostly and my career has focused in those areas. But at State Farm I’m blending that expertise along with data capabilities to serve as an internal consultant for communicators. I try to help them use data and other metrics to “see the forest from the trees” in essence.
I’d say I am known for helping people and my way to relate with people. In the 5 voices assessment I test as a nurturer, which is defined as: Nurturers are champions of relationships, harmony, and values. They are self-giving, the relational oil inside teams, they delight in the success of others, and they intuit how people will react to change.
Nurturers account for almost half the population. They shy away from conflict, but can provide invaluable benefits to the team:
They intuitively feel how an organization will react to a new idea
They defend values; people will always come before profit
They function as the relational oil inside teams and organizations
They are pragmatic realists who ask — “has this really been thought through?”
They take genuine delight in celebrating the achievements of others and are natural team players.
I would say that helps sets me apart in certain cases. I have learned to use the above as my core strengths and play to them. I know what I am good at and what I am not and put myself in positions to succeed.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.todmeisner.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/todmeisner
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/todmeisner
