Ryan Snyder

My writing career began in earnest when I lucked into a job writing and editing the music section of a local alt-weekly. Years of idolizing William Miller in Almost Famous had finally paid off.

Over my six years in that role, I accrued more than 1,500 bylines. That figure is no embellishment. It’s nearly impossible to distill my best work into such a small space, but I do have my favorites.

First, this story of Doc Watson and his legacy one year after his passing could have easily been 10 times longer. I interviewed dozens of people within his sphere of influence, including Sam Bush, both Avett Brothers, and his luthier. The cherry on top, however, was when John McEuen of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band gave me a set of extremely rare photos of Doc and the band from their short studio time together making one of folk’s greatest records.

Next is a story on the ascendance of Rhiannon Giddens from frontwoman of the Carolina Chocolate Drops to a peerless solo artist, followed by some of my favorite pieces of capsule writing.

I’ve threaded the needle of complex business requirements and fastidious regulatory requirements to design accessible, user-centered experiences. For more detailed examples, visit any part of the Truist credit card, loans, or mortgage sites.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with photographers, videographers, and designers of extraordinary talent in rare circumstances, and that has demanded content strategy and messaging that serves their creations to the highest degree.

First, an assortment of posts utilizing images I selected from batches of hundreds, paired with messages I created to (1) drive sales and (2 and 3) create a narrative of a multi-day event in real time.

I specialize in high-leverage social campaigns, most notably those built around event and demo livestreams. For Moogfest’s 2017 AlwaysON event in which they livestreamed 50 consecutive hours of performances by female, nonbinary, and transgendered artists, I managed pushes across the three major social platforms while also moderating the comments section of the YouTube and Reddit streams.

More recently, my social media ad buys and posting strategy helped Moogfest’s 2018 livestreams (of which three are referenced below) reach an estimated 12 million viewers.

When in need, I can cut a little audio and video, like I did with this birthday acknowledgement of REM’s Michael Stipe for his contributions to Moogfest.

When social media just isn’t enough, I can also turn to the good, old-fashioned press release.

As the content lead for LIMU’s rebranding of their LEAN Meal Replacement Shakes, I envisioned an on-the-go alternative to the conventional bulky protein shake canister. The idea was a winner, and the new package eventually helped them completely phase out the large, bulk pouches that were previously used with boxes of individual servings.

My years as an alt-weekly music editor was not without its perks. Among them was nearly carte blanche access to photo pits at festivals, stadium shows, and clubs. I spent nearly half a million shutter clicks capturing legendary (or soon-to-be legendary) artists in difficult shooting conditions, with little available light and strict time limits to capture that one moment that told the story in ways my words couldn’t.

A company decided one day to hand me the keys to their entire email marketing operation. Not because I possessed deep database marketing experience. It was out of sheer necessity and and the implicit trust that I’d get the job done.

A short time and several levels of IBM Marketing Cloud Expert badges later, and I was created highly segmented, fully automated email campaigns to drive web traffic, product sales, and social engagement.

Since, I’ve worked with email management programs of decidedly lower degrees of difficulty (Mailchimp, Constant Contact) and third-party providers (Bandsintown) while surpassing benchmarks with all.

My focus is primarily on the content side, but my knowledge of email best practices and conversion strategies runs deep.