Hopkins alumna Ganz talks TV, social media

ABC Family is one of the only networks to fully integrate social campaigns in on-air, digital, press and print media, so it goes without saying that it has an amazing marketing and social media team — we’ve all watched Pretty Little Liars and noticed that hashtags appear mid-episode in the corner of the screen (#TheBetrAyl, #TobysBack and most recently, #RIPMona). But did you know that one of the key players in ABC Family’s marketing strategy is a Hopkins alumna?

Meet Dalia Ganz (’05), a Writing Seminars graduate who now serves as ABC Family’s Director of Digital and Partnership Marketing.

At Hopkins, Ganz was an active member of Phi Mu and prepared herself for the workforce by interning throughout her college years. While in Baltimore, she worked at a news station and a PR marketing agency, and during the summer in Boston, her hometown, she interned at her local ABC station. Ganz also credits her degree in Writing Seminars with developing her skills as a writer.

“A lot of what I do in the social space involves writing. You can’t be working on social media and not be a great writer. My team and I communicate with millions of people every day, so having a great writing background helps us on a daily basis,” Ganz said.

Ganz was hired as a marketing assistant at ABC Family just months after graduation. She started as the assistant of her current boss, Danielle Mullin, and worked with her to develop the role of social media in ABC Family’s marketing strategies.

“Back at Hopkins, we had Facebook in 2004, so I had a bit of a head start. When I got to ABC Family in 2005, I already was obsessed with Facebook, and I said, ‘We should be on Facebook,’ and every time there was a new social network that popped up, I was really excited about it,” Ganz added.

Since then the network has gone from having one Facebook page to having individual pages for each show on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc. Social media has become an integral aspect of its marketing strategy and has expanded the network’s audience.

“We’ve grown as a network, and it’s been incredible to see that happen and be a part of it,” Ganz said.

In addition to overseeing social media and managing the social media team, she works with nearly every department at ABC Family to make sure everyone is knowledgeable about and taking advantage of social media.

As Director of Digital and Partnership Marketing, Ganz’s position encompasses more than just social media. The “Partnership” aspect of her job has become especially important recently because of newer shows like Chasing Life and The Fosters. Ganz acts as the liaison between the network and nonprofit organizations and other partners.

When ABC Family first picked up Chasing Life, a show about a 24-year-old woman with cancer, the network wasn’t sure how the cancer community would react, but through partnerships with organizations like Stand Up to Cancer, American Cancer Society and Stupid Cancer, they’ve embraced it. With the The Fosters, ABC Family has partnered with LGBTQ and foster care organizations.

According to Ganz, she helps to foster win-win partnerships where “we promote the organization and they promote the show.” Her role is not limited to nonprofits; if there is a book coming out that relates to one of the shows (like the Pretty Little Liars book series), Ganz works with the publisher on a cross-promotional strategy.

In addition to third-party partnerships, Ganz leads synergy efforts, which are partnerships between different divisions of the Walt Disney Company.

“No company does synergy better than The Walt Disney Company,” she added.  For “25 Days of Christmas,” which is a month of holiday programming, Ganz works with nearly every business unit of Disney by arranging signage at Disney Parks, working with Disney Interactive on original content, running trailers at promotional screenings of Walt Disney Studios movies, etc.

“It’s fun to be involved with everything that’s happening at the Walt Disney Company,” Ganz said. Partnerships are especially valuable nowadays, because while much has evolved in the marketing space, budgets haven’t. “Marketing budgets aren’t going up, you have to do more for the same amount of money or possibly less.” So now, social media is more important than ever as a cost-effective tool.

“Everybody at the network supports social media. I’m so lucky to be working at ABC Family because of that. Whenever there’s an opportunity for us cover something in a social media space, to get the absolute best content for our fans, this network makes it happen,” Ganz said.

This year, for the first time ever, ABC Family aired the Stand Up to Cancer telecast, and ABC Family talent was a part of it, so the social media team was able to cover the talent as they walked the red carpet.

For Pretty Little Liars, the social media team goes on the set to capture content. Right now, the team is pooling its content for the Halloween episode airing in October. Whenever there is an opportunity to grab the best content for fans, the team does.

“We never want a situation where our fans have access to content before we do. We think like fans, we act like fans, we have access to the sets, the cast, the crew, and meet the user’s demands. If the fans want something, we get it,” Ganz said.

Because the fashion on Pretty Little Liars has such a cult following, the social team created a set of Pinterest boards devoted to the wardrobe of each character.

“It’s important to us to be the official and the best source of information for our fans,” she added.

Does this mean that Ganz knows who A is? Not necessarily. She hears a season in advance of a storyline and then watches episodes ahead of time, so she can plan the week-by-week social media coverage. What she does know is that there are great storylines and grand plans coming up this season.

As far as the show’s record-breaking marketing strategies, Ganz’s team uses topical hashtags that run in episodes. Members of the Marketing & Creative team meet to brainstorm these, so the ultimate goal is to integrate the digital content and the television programming and amplify what each department at the network is doing.

Five years from now, Ganz hopes she’ll still be at ABC Family or within the Walt Disney Company. She encourages all Hopkins graduates to apply to Disney, because it’s an amazing place to work.

“If you’d asked me five years ago would I be a Director of Digital and Partnership Marketing, I would have said no, because the position didn’t exist,” she said.

What’s so interesting about working at Disney is that the company’s landscape is constantly changing, and some current job titles didn’t exist five years ago. Therefore, it’s hard to predict where the company will be in a few years. “I really love working at Disney and I definitely want to stay here for the long term,” she added.

Ganz’s advice to Hopkins students is simple: “Find a job that you love, because if you love it, you’ll be better at it.”

Ganz is passionate about what she does, so even when she’s not working, she’s thinking about her job because she’s really excited by it. And when she is at work, it actually doesn’t feel like work. Her team is really happy, works really hard and is constantly innovating.

“While money is important when you’re looking at a career, find something you’re passionate, about and you will succeed at it, versus just finding a job that pays better,” Ganz said. “I think in the long term you’ll excel if you find something you’re passionate about.”

As far as social media at Hopkins, Ganz says strategies should depend on which groups are using it, but everybody should use it as a way to get feedback. Social media is a breaking news outlet, so we should update people in real time on what’s happening within our student groups.

“We feature a lot of our fans," she said. "We’ll share their fan art, we’ll share their photos, and so you get a really good sense of who the community is for all of our shows, and I think that’s important at Hopkins as well"