Game Face

Brittany Hennessy opens up on how to define a personal brand, strategizing your content creation to reflect your value to brands, tips for using your social media bio to your advantage, knowing what trends to act on, and keys to leveraging your content creation skills for post-graduation opportunities. Brittany is the best-selling author of “INFLUENCER: Building Your Personal Brand In The Age Of Social Media”, and co-founder & Chief Relationship Officer of an influencer development platform serving creators, performers, and entrepreneurs, called CARBON AUGUST. She was the first Senior Director, Influencer Strategy & Talent Partnerships at Hearst Magazines Digital Media.

Ritesh Gupta, a highly sought-after and celebrated journalist-turned-filmmaker, is known for making big-brand short films, and helping them connect with their audiences, converting content into cultural moments (such as the groundbreaking Beats by Dre "You Love Me" Short Film). Winner of many major awards, Ritesh works with big-time athletes, top-shelf brands, and the biggest sports franchises, telling emotional stories which strike a chord in audiences across all platforms. He drops some true gems in this mesmerizing conversation about the true essence of effective storytelling, what will really get you in front of his lens, and the secret behind making your content, (on and off social media) actually worth doing. linktr.ee/gamefacepodcast

Duke University D1 Track and Field athlete Emily Cole is known also from her viral TikTok video looking for a date for her formal (she shares the full behind the scenes story). Her social media following has rapidly grown since then, enabling her to go big on NIL opportunities. Much of her focus has been on utilizing her platform to benefit others. She’s gone from posting running videos and daily vlogs to writing the sports nutrition book AthlEATS. She has a true game plan on how she takes herself from NIL success to increasingly bigger opportunities after graduation, and covers how she plans content to connect with her audience, her thoughts on reusing TikTok videos on Instagram, and the one piece of advice she’d give every student athlete on making their personal brand work for them. https://linktr.ee/eemilycolee

Middle-blocker volleyball athlete at Troy University, Caitlin Coops, has turned her love of fashion modeling into one NIL deal after another. Caitlin is in the zone with business opportunities, and it shows. She's a great example of why college athletes can catch the attention of brands before they’ve got hundreds of thousands of social media followers. Caitlin opens up on being misunderstood by audiences, tips to engage with brands, knowing your own brand and what you bring to the table, dealing with haters, and ways student athletes can position themselves to make sure it’s not over after graduation. https://linktr.ee/caitlin.coops

Founder of the NIL Network and the Name, Image, and Likeness Coordinator for San Diego State University, Michelle Meyer is definitely one of the go-to experts in the NIL space. She offers insights including: how NIL has changed the college sports experience, and the current opportunity for college athletes to gain life and entrepreneurial skills, a look into the NIL opportunities for athletes in Olympics sports, why it matters that you know what you want to get out of NIL opportunities, and the amazing path to networking it offers, the reality of teaching brands about NIL, and value of researching brands and platforms, figuring out the right marketplaces for you, and how many you should work with. https://linktr.ee/gamefacepodcast