Dean Athanasia, President of Reginal Banking at Bank of America, has amassed over 30k followers on LinkedIn – due in part to his authentic content that often provides lessons in leadership and career advice.
To further cement Dean as a thought-leader by way of social media, while supporting Bank of America’s reputation as a leader in driving positive change, we developed a social media video series comprised of one-on-one conversations between Dean and fellow executives across industries. Exploring leadership, the evolving workforce and building a culture of inclusion and growth, the series is designed to expand Dean’s executive visibility while humanizing the Bank brand.
With this goal in mind, we selected Cradles to Crayons President and CEO Lynn Margherio as the inaugural guest for the series. Cradles to Crayons is a national non-profit focused on providing children from birth through age 12, living in homeless or low-income situations, with the essential items they need to thrive – at home, at school and at play. We knew that Lynn would be the ideal guest, given her ability to speak to the tenants of leadership, while also highlighting the Bank’s long-time partnership with Cradles to Crayons and commitment to volunteerism and corporate giving.
The social strategy for the series launch included a mix of organic and paid content, cross-platform promotion and opportunities for executive and enterprise engagement with peers across industries.
To stand out on social platforms, we wanted Dean’s interview with Lynn to be compelling from both a content and visual perspective. We prepared a script ahead of filming, centering interview questions around Lynn’s career journey, leadership, volunteerism, and experience with corporate volunteers – like those from Bank of America. We also worked with Cradles to Crayons to film inside their Giving Factory headquarters, where employees and volunteers organize clothing and other necessities that are then donated to kids in need. Using the factory as the backdrop helped bring the narrative to life.
We also captured b-roll at the Giving Factory, which was later interspersed throughout the video to illustrate key points and add visual interest. This b-roll – alongside imagery of Dean and Bank of America teammates – was also used to create a dynamic video introduction designed to set the tone for the series and capture viewer attention. Finally, our team worked with Dean to record voiceover clips for the episode’s intro and outro. Each of these components were brought together to create a seamless final asset.
Our content strategy included sharing assets on YouTube, LinkedIn and with partners. We posted the full-length interview on Bank of America’s official YouTube page. Then, created a shorter corresponding clip to share on Dean Athanasia’s LinkedIn page – and repost on Bank of America’s LinkedIn channel – driving back to the YouTube video. Putting paid support behind Dean’s post enabled us to reach an even wider audience.
We also coordinated our social strategy with the Cradles to Crayons team, prompting the nonprofit organization and Lynn Margherio to amplify Dean’s post on their respective LinkedIn pages.
Our launch and social promotion strategy led to increased visibility across enterprise and executive social channels.
Video assets amassed over 1 million views between Dean’s LinkedIn platform and Bank of America’s YouTube platform, and garnered engagement from Lynn Margherio and her organization, Cradles to Crayons. Lynn reposted, liked and commented on Dean’s original post, while the organization reposted and liked the post. Dean’s LinkedIn post also received engagement from industry leaders, like the former Chairman and CEO of United Airlines, Oscar Munoz, and the CEO of YMCA Greater Boston, David Shapiro – fulfilling our goal of engaging peers and influencers across sectors.
Dean’s LinkedIn post also received the highest number of Bank of America employee impressions in 2023 of all his posts, effectively reinforcing the Bank as a great place to work among a wide-reaching employee audience.
