Guest speaker-Meredith Cotton

Meredith Cotton was raised in Palm Harbor, FL and attended the University of Florida, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Food and Resource Economics with a specialization in Agribusiness Marketing--Grocery Retail in May of 2012. While she has always been fascinated by finance and statistics, she found her true passion in social media. Communications had always been part of her life; she was yearbook editor and lead morning news anchor in high school and founded a Greek Life Lifestyle Publication while in college. 

As a new initiate of her sorority, Sigma Kappa, she was elected to the position of Vice President of Public Relations for 2010. One of her first initiatives as VPPR was to create connections and public awareness of the chapter through Twitter and Facebook. Through this initiative, she was able to connect with current sisters, chapter alumni, parents of sisters, other members of the greek community at UF, and even other Sigma Kappa chapters across the country. 

Her involvement as VPPR led her to apply and be elected to Captain of Public Relations for Dance Marathon at the University of Florida. In her first year of this position, her focus was on community management of social platforms as well as creative asset creation. At the 2011 event, they raised over $713,000 for Children's Miracle Network at Shands Hospital for Children. She was elected to the position again for the following year and for the 2012 event, her focus also included creating a social community for event alumni. This involved creating and managing a Facebook page as well as reaching out and connecting with alumni that were no longer involved with the event. At the 2012 event, they raised over $816,000. 

Meredith accepted the position of Social Media Coordinator with HSN in December of 2012. She is responsible for community and blog management and tactical execution of social marketing plans and events. She works across the organization to drive social media initiatives and support of the business. She also monitors effective benchmarks for measuring the impact of social media programs, and analyzes, reviews, and reports on effectiveness of campaigns in an effort to maximize results.