BIO / ryan hudson
Ryan worked at the British Embassy from February through August, serving as Head of Digital Diplomacy before taking over as Internal Communications Officer.
Ryan has 9 years of experience working in digital communications, and 10+ years experience in media and online publishing, from ESPN to SB Nation.
While managing the British Embassy’s social media channels, Ryan created and implemented a social media plan for Their Royal Highnesses’ visit to the USA. The campaign “generate[d] fantastic social media material that resulted in unprecedented engagement” (nearly 1 million impressions on Twitter alone). Ryan was recognized for his efforts by The Communications Secretary to The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall; Ryan also received a Spot Bonus Award following a peer nomination “for your work on the Washington DC Royal visit.” A Vine of The Prince of Wales dancing has over 15.9k loops (and still going).
Throughout the visit, Ryan create great interaction and engagement with event partners and other VIPs, including tweets from: The TODAY Show, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rep. Terri Sewell, US Nat’l Archives, Doris Kearns Goodwin, US State Dept., Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken, the Carlos Rosario School, Women of the World, the Louisville mayor, People, and even actress Ashley Judd.
Ryan injected new voice and capabilities in the British Embassy’s social media, leading the way in creating Snapchat and Periscope accounts. The Snapchat account — the first embassy in the world to join — was recognized by superiors as a “great example of determination to be creative and innovative,” and was commended by Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s Digital Transformation Unit for Digital Achievements at the Leadership Conference 2015 as one of 15 “of the most innovative, diverse and impactful ways comms teams across the networks are using digital.”
At SB Nation, Ryan served on the Editorial Leadership Team and was selected to present as Social Media Expert at SB Nation’s national conference. He also was selected to the SB Nation Mentoring Team as its Social Media Expert, and created the organization’s first-ever Social Media Best Practices, a document utilized by 300+ sites.
Ryan was a panel speaker at the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism workshop, “Sportswriting on the Internet.”
As Olympics Editor, Ryan planned, managed, and executed coverage of both the Vancouver Winter Olympics and London Summer Olympics, growing total pageviews for Olympic content from 240k in 2010 to 4.43 million two years later.
In his role as Social Media Manager, Ryan grew SB Nation from 10,314 Twitter followers and 10,809 Facebook likes (April 2011) to 80,707 followers (+683%)and 85,050 likes (+686%)(Oct. 2013). And he took SB Nation’s Google+ page from creation to 1.28 million followers.
@sbnation was selected as No. 3 account in Sports Illustrated’s Twitter 100 list for 2013
Created, launched, and managed 16 additional social media properties for SB Nation, including @SBNationCFB, @SBNationMLB, and @SBNationGIF, the latter of which is near 50k followers and was named to Sports Illustrated’s Twitter 100 in 2014.
Created and managed SB Nation Social Media Team and “LOOKIT,” SBNation.com’s section of social, viral and sharable content
Represented editorial team in design discussions and meetings; SBNation.com named one of World’s Best Designed Websites (Society for News Design, 2012)
Managed and oversaw all editorial content for Stride Nation (SB Nation’s running and triathlon community)
Before SB Nation, helped to found, and then manage, RealClearSports.com, property of RealClearPolitics. Quickly established site as a favorite of numerous industry leaders, including CNN Sports Editorial Director, Director of Production at CBS Sports.com, and high-profile columnists from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and ESPN.
Selected as Social Media Ambassador by TIMEX Sports to cover the 2012 Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii
Hand-picked as a Dick’s Sporting Goods Social Media Influencer for the 2013 Pittsburgh Marathon
Contributed to Sneaker Report (Complex Media)
Did his role as marketing intern with the New England Patriots in the summer of 2003 help lead the team to multiple Super Bowl victories? It can’t be proven that it didn’t help …
