WCA Member Profile: Danielle Stapleton of Southwestern University

Danielle Stapleton is a new member of Women Communicators of Austin who joined two months ago at the suggestion of her supervisor. She is primarily looking for networking opportunities and to make new contacts in her field.

Danielle has worked at Southwestern for five years and managed the University’s social media for three.

Danielle started her career in fundraising for Mills College in California but always wanted to work for Southwestern University being a graduate of the institution in 2005. Danielle realized she really enjoyed the communication side of her fundraising job, so she concentrated on that when looking for new opportunities. When her current position opened up, she applied as she thought she would enjoy the increased opportunity to communicate the mission of the university and it has been a great fit. As the Associate Director of University Relations – New Media, she has built Southwestern’s social media presence from scratch.

Danielle’s team includes the webmaster, media relations person, editor, creative director and designer. She shared that Southwestern will be hiring a chief marketing officer soon to present the university in a more cohesive fashion.

Danielle says that her role at the University is to tell the story of Southwestern at all times. She is always looking for content to post and spends about fifty percent of her time creating it. Her ultimate goal is to attract and retain quality students by sharing the story of Southwestern. Danielle’s audience is everybody from 17 year olds to current students, parents, and alumni. Her job makes her very conscious of the pulse of the student body and she often finds out from Twitter what the students are most focused on. Lately she is spending more time listening to constituents on social media, as she feels communications should be two directional and that her job is not just to push information out. Danielle also works with Southwestern’s Social Media Advisory Group which is made up of about twelve Southwestern staff who have a part of managing social media across the University.

In addition to her job duties, Danielle is honored to be the Chair of the Staff Steering Committee, a group of elected staff representatives that provide a voice and engagement in the governancy of the Southwestern community. She is also on the board of directors of the Boys and Girls Club of Georgetown working on publicity and marketing.

The greatest thing about working for Southwestern University is seeing the personal growth of the students. That’s what motivates Danielle in her job.

Danielle describes herself as driven, quality conscious, energetic, ambitious, and has a good sense of humor which she feels is necessary to make it through our world.

Danielle’s ambition for her membership in WCA is to meet people and get to know the organization and perhaps work in social media for WCA in the future.

Personally, Danielle has been married for six years to Tim and has a 2 ½ year old daughter, Ruth. She also counts three cats, a dog, and a tank of fish among her family.