Melissa is very skilled at drafting and editing press releases on a wide variety of subjects, paying close attention to AP Style and branding. She also has experience working on social media content creation for Facebook and Instagram, as well as blog and newspaper articles on a variety of subjects, including entertainment, recreation, religious speakers, public education, awards and achievements and more.
Melissa is interested in assisting non-profits, promotion of new products and helping small businesses grow. She enjoys creating and designing content for social media platforms (mostly Instagram). She worked in public education for five years, helping school districts with marketing, public relations and design services.
In her free time, Melissa enjoys reading mystery novels, home DIY magazines, and food/recipe blogs. She also enjoys working on graphic design projects and marketing work.
Melissa graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications, with a specialization in journalism and public relations. She minored in marketing and graphic design.
Melissa has worked closely with several Directors of Marketing researching marketing trends to better understand target markets, industry standards, digital marketing trends, evolving technology and best practices for my past employers educational and philanthropic efforts, as well as working to implement strategic and tactical plans.
Throughout her career, Melissa has ensured all marketing communications work done supported the mission and vision of her previous employers, met brand standards, and remain consistent with their strategic marketing goals.
As an employee of the Mahoning County Educational Service Center (MCESC), Melissa worked closely with school district superintendents and administrators to draft press releases promoting school/classroom events and achievements, managed school websites and social media pages, design and content creation of district annual reports in Adobe InDesign, attend monthly administrative meetings and other graphic design projects. Melissa was also the sole creator and manager of the monthly MCESC e-newsletter, created in Constant Contact, and all other company marketing materials.
During her time with Lakeside Chautauqua, a non-profit located on Lake Erie, Melissa founded and managed the WordPress blog, The Front Porch, oversaw the Lakesider newspaper and summer intern staff, and all graphic design projects.
She also assisted the Director of Marketing with writing press releases for weekly preachers, daily entertainment performers and special events taking place during peak season, updating the Lakeside Chautauqua website, and compiling the online newsletter, as well as social media content creation using HootSuite, an online social media management dashboard.
In addition, Melissa has conducted interviews and written feature stories published on The Front Porch blog, Lakeside website and Lakesider newspaper.
Melissa has started a personal blog, where she shares craft ideas and activities/projects to do with young kids. These are mostly a how-to style blog post, with step-by-step instructions and coordinating images as the flow of each blog post.
She has also written product reviews of craft supplies and popular products for crafters. These have also posted on social media is a more informal, Instagram story format.
Melissa has started a personal blog to share stories, product recommendations and experiences her family takes throughout the years. This is a very personal, first-person style of writing. She is open to helping brainstorm and create guidelines to how someone else could start a similar style blog.
Melissa has lengthy experience with press release writing. The subject areas she has covered include public education, online academies, nonprofits and fundraising.
She worked for two years in the Marketing Department at Lakeside Chautauqua (an Ohio nonprofit) writing press releases for summer entertainment and performers, recreational activities, religious speakers, and educational seminars.
Melissa worked in public education for five years, where she had a large workload of press release writing on subjects ranging from awards and achievements, new program launches, school district events, board meetings, transportation, and more.
Melissa helped launch two blogs, using WordPress platforms, and written articles using a variety of styles and subject matter. She has written How To blogs, informative blogs, research-based blogs, arts and craft ideas, travel promotion, blogs with infographics and list-style blog posts.
Melissa has experience writing published newspaper articles for several local newspapers on a variety of subject material. She uses AP Style guidelines for all her journalistic articles, keeping up to date with the latest style guidelines.