Week 1: A Conversation with Clint Schaff by Deborah E Salter Kawaguchi

By UCLA X469.21 Student Deborah E Salter Kawaguchi

The first class for the Fall 2021 version of Erik Deutsch’s “Best Practices in Social Media” class through UCLA Extension started with a bang, with the return of L.A. Times Studios strategist, hip-hop DJ, and social media expert Clint Schaff. He sprang his interactive intro on us, asking us to call out “next” when we wanted him to move to the rest of his life story— which felt a bit rude—but turned out to be fun, different, and made us pay attention. It was also a beautiful illustration of his core principle for why he works in social media: Building community.

Clint’s Playbook offered these guiding principles:

• On objectives: focus on outcomes that produce value over time
• On prioritizing the priorities: know your audience and their preferred social media channels
• On engagement: inform, empower, and motivate your audience through continuity and serendipity

Boiling it all down … learn and study the guiding principles, then know them well enough to go creatively from the heart. Grow community by providing inclusive content and strategies that resonate with the audience and attract subscribers. Stay away from sharing content by questionable sources, and don’t stay silent if the brand has done something wrong. At the end of the day, it’s people reaching people. Remember, we’re all consumers. Give what you’d like to receive.

Clint’s best Playbook example comes from his own life choices: He builds community wherever he goes–whether that’s in LA or Bentonville, Arkansas, at the LA Times or as a DJ at Bentonville Radio.