The St. John’s University Career Services and Marketing Club hosted the “#CreativeChat: A Panel on Student Content Creation” event on March 20 in the D’Angelo Center (DAC) to lead an engaging conversation on the innovative ways to have a career in content creation. 

The event was led by Nikki Pebbles- Perretti, a Career Services Advisor who also creates online content about well-being and career advice on her own social media accounts. Following the event she spoke to The Torch about what the “#CreativeChat” strives to do. 

“[Content creation] is such an important skill for students to learn, whether you want to be a content creator, or you’re just looking for your next job,” she said 

Of the five panelists that spoke to a crowd of about 50 students were Kaiya Williams from the KAW Management Group, Sarah Alice Liddy of VaynerMedia, Krystal Nicholson, a recent St. John’s alumni as well as an Influencer Marketing Manager for Dentsu International, content creator Pamela Valdez and lastly Amarra Lopez, a current sophomore at St. John’s and the Vice President of the Marketing Club.. 

Panelists highlighted the several pathways that aspiring content creators could take to get into the industry, including fashion, sports and podcasts. 

Williams’ path was much different from the audience of college students, as she never attended college herself. She started her own agency working alongside professional athletes as a sophomore in highschool, and has been an entrepreneur ever since. As an online creator she told the crowd to “get comfortable with rejection.” 

Nicholson works as a creative marketer where she manages influencer marketing for Burger King. She’s responsible for putting together campaigns, strategizing influencers and videos to use and overviewing contracts. She formerly wanted to work in fashion, and noted to the audience that your career path can split in many different ways. 

Nicholson pulled from her experience at St. John’s, saying that internships shaped her entire career.

She told students attending to be themselves because “there is always room at the table for you.” 

The youngest panelist, sophomore Amarra Lopez, helped the Marketing Club set up the panel of speakers. 

Last November, the Marketing Club had a one-on-one content creation event. Lopez said that the attraction from that event and the spring activities fair in 2023 garnered more attention from Pebbles-Perretti, who approached Lopez and suggested they do a panel on content creation. 

Fast forward a few months, and the event came to fruition. 

“With my [own] content creation and social media presence I was able to build awareness through my own accounts, but also bring awareness to the actual account for the Marketing Club,” Lopez said after the event. 

She was very pleased with the large crowd in attendance. She also serves as the Captain of the Video Content Committee, which focuses on building personal brands for other students. 

“Content creation was always just a hobby to me,” she continued. “I realized how much of a passion it was for me, and that’s why I started investing more time in it.” 

After the panel and Q&A session, the audience was encouraged to take from the provided snacks and refreshments from the back of the room, but most of them stuck around and went to personally introduce themselves to each of the panelists.

As an aspiring content creator herself, sophomore student Autumn Hill took full advantage of the time given after the event to speak to each content creator individually. 

“The main reason I came today was to ask questions to people who are already in the field that I want to get into,” she said after the event. “Just to learn more on what I’m already building myself.” 

University Career Services will host their next event, the Spring Career Fair, on April 4. It will host a variety of career booths for students.