Michael Lamp SVP, Social & Digital Media at Hunter PR was Named a PRSA-NY 2018 15 Under 35 Winner

Michael Lamp SVP, Social & Digital Media at Hunter PR was interviewed by Nicholas Kost Influencer Marketing Account Executive at D S Simon Media. They spoke about Michael’s big career break, advice he offers to people starting out and the best advice he ever received from a mentor or older colleague.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

NICK: Hi I’m Nicholas Kost Account Executive with D S Simon Media and I’m here with Michael Lamp from Hunter PR and he has just been announced as a 15 Under 35 winner. So congratulations.

MICHAEL: Thank you very much. Very honored and excited to be here.

NICK: Wonderful. So Michael tell me you know a little example of a key moment in your career that has led to success?

MICHAEL: Yes I’d say for me as mentioned I’m the SVP of our social and digital practice at Hunter so I think a sort of key moment that kind of changed everything for me and led to-ushered in a new era of success I would say was in about 2010 when a lot of PR agencies were developing social and digital practices and the partners at Hunter approached me and gave me an amazing opportunity to build our department from the ground up and I was very excited at the challenge and have spent the last half a decade plus building that department and now running it on all cylinders. So I say that was the moment in summer of 2010.

NICK: Wonderful. That’s great. How about some advice you could share for some of the younger people who are just entering the industry.

MICHAEL: So this is going to sound a little dorky a little nerdy but I’m just going to actually go right to continue to read. I feel like all we do is watch and listen and absorb and sort of less less literal means. But I would say that in that same spirit of 2010 when I was shifting my career from the traditional space to more of a digital first professional. I just spent a lot of time reading and soaking up information that I could. Obviously, media has evolved, and we can watch a lot more than we used to but there’s really no substitute for learning from text and also from those around you. So reading and then a sort of a listening and writing but just don’t forget that you can actually learn so much from people who have been doing it a lot longer than you. So reading published works reading case studies etc. are just the best ways to find out how people are innovating in our industry and ushering in the sort of next level of success.

NICK: So keep hitting the books kids. Stay in school. Exactly. And then one last thing maybe a piece of advice you were given from a colleague or mentor that helped you along the way.

MICHAEL: Yes. I would say the predominant theme in the best advice I’ve gotten from sort of all of those folks in my life colleagues mentors friends. I’ve been lucky enough to have folks who wear all those hats in my life. But I would say to be generous with expertise and what I mean by that is, we work in a really competitive industry and in a competitive environment in our agencies in our in our industry at large with clients. We’re always competing with each other. And it’s fun to be in a room and be thought of as one of the smartest people in that room. But it’s more impactful and I think you leave more of a mark on people if you actually teach them something they didn’t know before right. So it’s one thing to flex your own muscles when it comes to strategic smarts. But it’s another thing to teach someone else to be a better version of themselves because those are the footprints that I think you leave for the for the next generation and so on and so forth.

NICK: Well thank you very much Michael and enjoy the rest of the night here. Thank you. Pleasure to meet you.