Q&A With Bellmont Partners’ New Digital Strategist, Sarah Schiltz

We’re thrilled to intro­duce Bell­mont Part­ners’ new dig­i­tal strate­gist, Sarah Schiltz. Sarah is an expe­ri­enced mar­keter with a deep focus in all things dig­i­tal and social media, honed from her work with non­prof­its, B2B and B2C com­pa­nies nationwide.

As our dig­i­tal strate­gist, Sarah is work­ing across all our indus­try prac­tice groups, serv­ing as a trust­ed resource and cre­ative mind to our inter­nal teams and our clients alike. With her knack for merg­ing time­ly trends with sound strat­e­gy and analy­sis – not to men­tion her easy­go­ing style and the fact that she has a pit­bull named Gail (c’mon!) – Sarah is a wel­comed addi­tion to the Bell­mont Part­ners team! We sat down with Sarah to learn more about her love for social media and more.

How has your pas­sion for dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing and social media grown through your career?

In the ear­ly stages of my career, I did a lit­tle bit of every­thing under the marketing/communications umbrel­la. I start­ed out in the non­prof­it sec­tor and often had to wear a num­ber of dif­fer­ent hats with­in the mar­ket­ing depart­ment. I found, though, that I start­ed grav­i­tat­ing towards dig­i­tal and, in par­tic­u­lar, social media. What start­ed out as a way to share about what you had for lunch became this excit­ing world where all of a sud­den, brands could build real­ly pow­er­ful rela­tion­ships and share incred­i­ble sto­ries with cur­rent and prospec­tive audi­ences. Dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing and social media give audi­ences a chance to real­ly learn about who a brand is beyond a mis­sion state­ment. There are so many ways, big and small, to grow your dig­i­tal pres­ence, and as I grew in my career I found that my pas­sion lies in help­ing brands do just that.

Dig­i­tal and social media mar­ket­ing have always been inte­grat­ed into Bell­mont Part­ners’ offer­ings. Now, with your new role – sole­ly ded­i­cat­ed to dig­i­tal strat­e­gy – we’re increas­ing our focus on all things dig­i­tal in a big way. What about this is excit­ing to you? 

I’m a big pro­po­nent of using data to inform strat­e­gy, and I’m real­ly excit­ed to be able to dive even deep­er into data-focused results with clients across the board. The world of dig­i­tal is ever-chang­ing, so in my role I’ll be stay­ing on top of what’s chang­ing and how, and how clients can shift to take advan­tage of what’s cur­rent and trend­ing. The pos­si­bil­i­ties are tru­ly end­less as long as you’re up for try­ing some­thing new, and I can’t wait to work with clients on new, excit­ing adven­tures in the world of digital.

What have you been work­ing on so far at the agency?

I’ve been lucky to jump into a num­ber of projects so far! I’ve been able to join the Duluth tourism team, which has been a lot of fun – I love the city of Duluth, so being able to brain­storm how to show­case how amaz­ing of a place it is across dig­i­tal chan­nels has been a great way to jump into Bell­mont Part­ners. I’ve also been able to start con­sult­ing with projects across the agency, which has been a great way to get to know all of the dif­fer­ent clients we work with.

Favorite social media plat­form – and why?

This is a tough ques­tion! I like all of them for dif­fer­ent rea­sons, as they all serve such unique pur­pos­es. Late­ly, though, I’ve jumped on the Tik­Tok train. Per­son­al­ly, I love scrolling through the videos as I decom­press. Pro­fes­sion­al­ly, it’s been fas­ci­nat­ing to watch how dif­fer­ent brands show up on the plat­form – it’s an entire­ly new way to par­tic­i­pate in trends and com­mu­ni­cate with audi­ences. There have been some real­ly amaz­ing exam­ples of how one sin­gle Tik­Tok has turned into a real­ly amaz­ing mar­ket­ing cam­paign, and the oppor­tu­ni­ty for rela­tion­ship build­ing has become real­ly unique com­pared to the oth­er plat­forms. I’ve even start­ed fol­low­ing brands I nev­er imag­ined I would just because of their Tik­Tok presence.

What do you enjoy doing with your time out­side of work?

I’m a big fan of brew­eries, and I think we’re pret­ty spoiled in the Twin Cities with our craft brew­ery scene. My hus­band, Jake, and I also love tak­ing our 1‑year-old pit­bull, Gail, on walks to the lakes and out to dog-friend­ly patios. I’m a big sports fan, espe­cial­ly Min­neso­ta Unit­ed and any­thing Gopher sports (I’ve had foot­ball sea­son tick­ets for a num­ber of years now!). When they’re play­ing, you can often find me in the sup­port­ers’ sec­tion at a Loons match or at Hunt­ing­ton Bank sta­di­um. Ski-U-Mah and Come On You Loons!