How I helped turn NBCC's social presence into a high-performing, human-centered content engine.
For five years, I served as the sole Social Media Specialist for New Brunswick Community College — leading social strategy, content strategy, campaign storytelling, and day-to-day execution for a six-campus brand with audiences across the province.
Social media strategy and content strategy aren't two things. They're one system.
When I joined NBCC, there was already a social media strategy on paper. But there was a gap — the kind that's easy to miss until you're the one publishing every day — between the strategy that existed and the content that was actually bringing it to life on-channel.
So I went into the data. I reviewed what was performing, what wasn't, and what people were actually responding to. The pattern was clear: human-centered stories won. Real students. Real instructors. Real campus moments. So I built the content strategy around them — and the engine started running.
"He knows that behind every brand are real people and real stories worth telling well. He creates content that feels authentic and deeply connected to the audience he's trying to reach."
Three campaigns. Three very different jobs.
A pivot without an in-house crew. A values-led movement. And a fundraising campaign that blew past its goal. Different briefs, same operating system.
How losing our in-house photo/video crew forced a vertical video breakthrough.
Graduation week is one of NBCC's biggest annual social moments — a full week of travel across six campuses, deeply tied to community and family. The catch? No in-house photographer or videographer, which meant a previously reliable coverage strategy was off the table. I had to pivot fast and try something brand new. So I rebuilt the play.
The Play
- → Pivoted the campaign to TikTok and vertical video — meeting students where they actually were.
- → Built a trend strategy mapped to grad emotion: pride, reflection, "we made it" energy.
- → Coordinated featured students across campuses ahead of time so production was fast on the ground.
- → Captured everything myself — week-long shoot, six campuses, edit-as-you-go.
- → Centered real students, emotional hooks, and vertical-first storytelling in every cut.
Top performing posts
How I helped turn belonging from a value into visible action.
NBCC's culture of belonging was one of its most important values. While shaping the content strategy, I saw an opportunity to make LGBTQ+ belonging more visible and intentional for students — not as a one-off post, but as a long-term initiative the institution could grow into.
The Arc
Proposed and led NBCC's first participation in the Fredericton Pride Parade.
Grew the work into a recurring belonging moment with stories, Reels, and event content.
Co-chaired the formal NBCC Pride internal committee — strategy meets institution.
Recognized as part of NBCC's official 'Taking Pride in Our Culture of Belonging.'
Why it worked
The strongest posts featured real people, movement, joy, colour, and local Pride events — community-rooted storytelling, not corporate signaling.
The Receipts
The social storytelling system behind NBCC's first-ever fundraising campaign.
Going Beyond was NBCC's first-ever fundraising campaign. The original goal was $16M. The final public result was $21.8M. I was brought in early to help shape how the campaign would live and breathe on social.
Accelerate skills
Storytelling around hands-on training and workforce-ready learners.
Innovate delivery
Spotlighting program evolution, new modalities, and industry partnerships.
Reach more learners
Centering access, scholarships, and the human stories funding makes possible.
The Content Ecosystem
- → Launch moment + reveal
- → Donor announcement posts
- → Progress + milestone updates
- → Event recap Reels and carousels
- → Donor + recipient storytelling
- → Static graphics built with internal design
Five years of receipts. Here's what they say.
Strategy + execution, together.
I don't write decks and disappear. I build the plan and ship the work — so nothing gets lost in translation between the brief and the post.
Content systems, not random posts.
Every piece of content has a job. Pillars, formats, hooks, and cadence built to compound, not fill a calendar.
Campaign storytelling that lasts.
I plan multi-month arcs that build momentum: launch → middle → milestone → finale. Audiences feel the build because it's actually built.
Human-centered content that performs.
Real students, real stories, real faces. Emotion is the strategy — and the data has consistently agreed.
Institutional storytelling with depth.
Six campuses, province-wide audiences, values-driven mandates. I can hold complexity without flattening the brand.
"Jared brings an incredible level of energy, creativity, and passion to everything he does, but what stands out most is his commitment to telling stories with heart."
NBCC is why I built HG@S the way I did.
Five years inside one brand teaches you something a campaign-by-campaign agency career never can:strategy and content can't be separated without the work suffering. The plan and the post need to come from the same brain — or at minimum, the same tightly aligned system.
That's why HG@S doesn't split social media strategy from content strategy. It's why I lean toward long-term relationships, not one-off projects. And it's why human-centered content — real people, real stories, real reasons to care — is the operating system underneath everything I build.
The NBCC work didn't just prove the model. It is the model.
"Jared's enthusiasm is contagious, his dedication to his craft is unmistakable, and he will be the hype squad you need to believe that your story is worth telling and it's worth telling well."
Relevant HG@S services
This is what social media + content strategy and social media content creation look like when they run as one system for five straight years.
Need a social partner who's done the work?
If you're a New Brunswick brand looking for someone who builds strategy and ships the content — that's the whole point of HG@S.