Week 4: Juliana Nikac

This week, I’m sharing some insights from my conversation with Philadelphia Phillies Social Media Coordinator, Juliana Nikac. I broke down our conversation into different points in her life, so feel free to read all the way through or pick the sections that interest you most!

Quinnipiac

Juliana chose Quinnipiac mainly for all the sports media opportunities it offered – which is interesting from someone who applied as a psychology major. Between the faculty, the school’s connections, and the opportunities to get involved, she knew this was the place for her. After switching her major multiple times, she landed on Public Relations.

During her short time at Quinnipiac, her favorite class was Communication Law & Policy, and she still uses that knowledge today. “Working in social media, you need to know a lot about how comm law works, especially when it comes to media rights and music,” she said. “I knew it would apply to what my job was in some way, but I didn’t know that it would apply like that. And whenever we have meetings about all this stuff, I’m like ‘Oh, I learned this in school’ when probably the majority of people that I’m working with did not.”

Outside of classes, she was involved in the radio station (WQAQ), AWSM, and QBSN, but continued with QBSN the longest due to the opportunities she had. Juliana spent her freshman year doing lots of game coverage, whether that was game recaps, color commentary, or anything else they had available. She became the online editor during her sophomore year, overseeing all website content and posting on social media, which helped her realize that’s what she wanted to do as a career. “Whether it was baseball, acro and tumbling, it didn’t really matter. I was willing to do any of it, and that’s pretty much where I figured out that I wanted to be involved in the sports space in that way.”

Juliana covered many women's ice hockey games during her time at QU. (Photo provided by Juliana Nikac)

BU

While she loved her time at QU, Juliana ended up transferring after sophomore year to live in a city environment. A PR major at Boston University, she had great experiences inside and outside the classroom. Similar to The Agency at Quinnipiac, BU had the PR Lab, where she worked with a client and gained agency-like experience.

She had 3 internships during her time at BU, the first being with Major League Lacrosse in the summer of 2018. While she gained tons of writing experience, that helped her realize that journalism and PR weren’t necessarily for her. The next summer, she was a social media intern for the Wareham Gatemen, where she learned a lot about social media research and managing accounts. During her senior year, she interned with the Boston Pride, running social media and shooting photos/videos. Having those 3 experiences helped her see what her life could be like working full-time in sports.

At her 3 internships, Juliana gained real-world experience publishing content for a sports team. (Photo provided by Juliana Nikac)

Career

Because she graduated during the pandemic, she knew how hard it would’ve been to find another job, so she stuck with the NWHL for another season. She spent the 2020-2021 season as a part-time social media manager for the Connecticut Whale. When the world started opening back up in early 2021, she applied to over 200 jobs, and finally got a job with the Denver Nuggets.

Juliana completed her master’s degree in Strategic Brand Communication online through the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign while working in Denver as a social media coordinator. “I hit the ground running…within a couple of weeks, I was getting experience publishing on all of our social platforms,” she said. In addition to social media publishing, she was able to gain experience in many other areas of sports communication, such as shooting photo/video, attending community events, strategizing for creative content, and working with sponsors.

Due to some health issues, her time in Denver wasn’t too long, and she ended up starting her job with the Philadelphia Phillies in January 2022. “That was an interesting start because I started during the lockout, so we couldn’t post anything that had to do with our players,” she said. But once the lockout ended, it was full speed ahead becoming familiar with their brand voice, sponsors, and previous work.

She explained that in her two seasons with the Phillies so far, she’s mostly been doing social media publishing on all platforms. In addition to posting on the team’s main account during games, she’s collaborated with graphic designers/video producers, tracked social media metrics, and worked on other Phillies-related accounts. She helped launch @PhilsPlayerDev, and has contributed to @PhilliesCBP, @philliephanatic, and more.

While she learned the importance of social media analytics on the job, she also realized that they can be reflective of on-field performance and not always your work. “I remember when we won the pennant. Me and my boss at the time were refreshing Instagram constantly…we literally gained like 150,000 followers in a day,” she said. “It’s dependent on how you perform clearly, but we do use analytics to determine how pieces of content are working.” She explained that they’ve used insights to inform certain types of content, like their final score posts.

In addition to the Phillies main accounts, Juliana manages the Phanatic's account too (among others)! (Photo provided by Juliana Nikac)

Working with a postseason team for the past two years, she described it as nothing short of crazy. Her postseason experiences taught her a lot about balancing social media strategy with the spontaneity of big moments. For example, in Game 1 of the 2022 NL Wild Card Series, the Phillies scored 6 runs in the ninth to come back and beat the Cardinals. “I don’t normally advise to keyboard smash. But I keyboard smashed,” she said.

“This year was even crazier because we had all those comments that happened in the NLDS,” she added. After Bryce Harper hit his second home run of the night in Game 3, “it was full send, and we were like, ‘we’re atta boy Harper-ing it all the way.’” The posts went viral, and rightfully so. “Yes, you strategize beforehand…but when something like that happens in the moment, you’re going on the fly.”

Networking

Just like in any field, she warns that you may experience some people who don’t answer a cold email or message. “But you will run into a lot of people like myself, like Liz, who are willing to help anybody just because we know what it’s like,” she said.

Juliana also explained the importance of networking beyond the surface level. “If you connect with people on a deeper level, then they’ll be more willing to want to talk to you,” she explained. Likening these connections to friendships and/or relationships, you have to show that you care about the person you’re networking with, instead of just trying to get something from them.

When I asked her how to develop a relationship beyond the surface level, she gave a few great pointers. First, you could reach out to someone and ask to learn about their career trajectory or what their experience in the field has been like. Coming prepared with questions or talking points can help facilitate the conversation.

She also mentioned that it could be helpful to look at people’s social media accounts and see what they’re interested in. “I remember there was one person I reached out to who was a huge My Chemical Romance fan, and I love My Chemical Romance, and I was like, look, I see you love My Chemical Romance. Beyond just talking about sports social media, let’s talk about how great of an album The Black Parade is… and we did. We talked for literally 45 minutes about that, beyond the initial 30-minute networking discussion. So, if you do things like that, people will definitely want to connect on more of a personal level with you,” she said.

In terms of where to network, of course LinkedIn is great, but Juliana has had the most success on X. “That’s honestly where I reached out to most of the people that I connected with,” she explained. “I would follow them and remain mutual for a month or so, and then reach out and just ask if they wanted to talk.”

Now for the part everyone’s been waiting for – her advice.

Juliana wants people to know that it’s possible to break into the sports industry no matter what your background is. “You don’t have to have an internship with a pro sports team when you’re in college to be able to get to where you are now,” she said. “You just have to have experience that is going to matter to organizations at the end of the day…so just utilize your experience in the best way you possibly can.”

As someone who’s been involved in the hiring process multiple times, she has tons of great advice when it comes to putting together your applications. First, keep your resume simple. You don’t need to go crazy with the design (unless you’re a graphic designer, of course), it’s much more important to focus on using active verbs and including relevant information. And if you’ve worked in social media, try to include numbers, whether that’s follower growth, reach, engagement, or any other positive metric. “People like to see numbers…you’re showcasing your ability to develop a strategy and grow an account.”

It’s also important to have a portfolio regardless of your specialization. “Create different sections for everything that you have,” she advised. “People want to see your best work.” She warned that it will definitely take a lot of time, but will be so worth it when employers can get a full picture of who you are as a person and a professional.

There are many skills that are essential to a career in the sports industry. Above all, she says effective communication is #1. “You need to over communicate, especially if you want to work in sports. It’s an ever-changing industry…a 24-hour industry, so just be on top of everything.” In addition to honing your project management skills and being organized, it’s essential to differentiate yourself from the pack by finding and maintaining your voice. “Find your personality, because yes, you’re going to adhere to brand guidelines, but people are going to hire you because of your own personal voice,” she said. “People have literally said that part of the reason that they’ve hired me is because I’m sarcastic on social media and I’m funny…that’s been said twice when people have hired me…and now I can transfer that over to what I do.”

For students like me, graduating in May, Juliana emphasized the idea of completing graduate internships. “If you can find a grad internship, do it. That is a great steppingstone to eventually have a full-time job. A lot more companies have grad internships nowadays than ever before.” She encourages us to “apply to as many positions as you possibly can,” but don’t just apply to apply. “You want to apply to things where you feel you can grow and develop, she said.

If you don’t hear from anything, first of all, “it’s okay, you are not a failure,” she said. Try to turn things around by trying to do freelance work. “Reach out to companies that you think might need help. I almost did that when I couldn’t find a job…the experience is honestly all that matters at the end of the day. It’s not about where you’ve worked. It’s about how much you’ve done.”

For students with 4 years of college ahead of them, Juliana wants you to know that it’s okay not to have everything figured out before/during college. “That’s the whole point of college, in my opinion, you’re trying to get the experiences and learn about various areas of studying so that you can figure out what you want to do.”

Throughout our conversation, she didn’t shy away from expressing love for her job. While her journey may have spanned a few different sports, Juliana’s journey to the big leagues has been extremely worth it.

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If you’d like to keep up with Juliana, follow her on Twitter @juliananikac or check out her portfolio at juliananikac.com.

Week 4 is in the books! Don’t forget to follow the blog on Instagram or connect with me on LinkedIn to keep the conversation going.

See you next week!