When Lucy MET 1909 | Lucy Redoglia

How I Became a Digital Marketer and Why I’ve Stuck With It

Hi, I’m Lucy! I’ve spent the majority of my professional career working in Digital Marketing for museums and cultural institutions. Believe it or not, (sometimes it’s hard for me to believe) I got my start at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. A few months after I moved to New York in 2008, I started a blog called MetEveryday and I proceeded to visit the museum more than 150 times in one year—writing all about the exhibitions and artworks I saw each time. After I’d been visiting and writing for several months, I was thrilled to see a comment on one of my posts from the Digital Media department at The Met! After I replied, they invited me to meet with a few people in the department for lunch to discuss what I, as an avid consumer of The Met’s digital content, would like to see from them. Fast forward another eight months or so and an opening came up for an Imaging Coordinator position on the email marketing team and they asked me to apply! Needless to say, I was elated—especially when I landed the job. That’s what I call my art world Cinderella story. 

So I rose in the ranks of the Web Group team at The Met, taking on more email and strategy responsibilities, and eventually became the second full-time social media producer in my last two years. In my five years altogether at The Met, I designed and coded emails, wrote blog posts, recorded a Connections episode, helped to relaunch the entire website (my main role was selecting, sizing, and uploading all non-artwork images for every single page of the new behemoth, which launched in 2011), stood on the red carpet before the Met Gala, and produced my first viral tweet. 

To say that working at The Met was a dream come true would be an incredible understatement. However, time went by and I missed the west coast (I’m from Southern California). When the social media manager position came up at LACMA, I threw my hat in the ring, got the gig, and found myself packing my things and flying back home with my two cats in tow. At LACMA I was the social media one-woman-show and the creativity flowed freely and prolifically! I arrived at the museum in 2015 when their Snapchat strategy was already generating attention for pairing pop culture with high-brow art, and I totally ran with it. This paid off in dividends when I won the Webby Award the following year. I also got to interview director Guillermo del Toro on Facebook Live, hang out in the Rain Room, experience James Turrell’s Breathing Light, cover the 50th Anniversary Gala and two Art+Film galas, lounge at Jackie Treehorn’s house from The Big Lebowski (architect John Lautner’s Sheats-Goldstein residence IRL), and so so so much more in the two years I was there. Since LACMA, I’ve been consulting on my own for about 3 years through my own LLC and loving every minute of it—I have the BEST boss (me)!

This is all to say that I found my way here to 1909 because of those museum experiences. You see, I “met” Lori through our wonderful Museum Social Media Managers Facebook group. We’ve known and interacted with each other there for years, but finally MET in person last fall in San Diego at MCN (Museum Computer Network)’s annual conference. I’m so grateful for her friendship and the offer to come on board to support 1909 as we grow and continue to take on new clients!

SO, what I like most about Digital Marketing is the unbelievable power it has to connect people with information, art, and each other. When used authentically and strategically, with good intentions and passion, these tools can be an unstoppable force in reaching your wildest goals—whether they be personal (in my own experience), mission-driven (for nonprofits and arts orgs), or aimed at converting online audiences into customers—the sky’s the limit.

What do I “nerd-out” about outside of Digital Marketing?

CATS. 

Over the years, I’ve collected cat socks, artworks, shirts, books, art history–inspired pins… pretty much cat everything—people just like to give me cat stuff, I guess. And I don’t mind, I’m a cat lady through and through, and proud of it!

Fun Facts About Me

I have two fur babies (kitties Desi and Fiona, both around 14 years old), plus one human on the way, due at the end of September 2020.

My maternal grandpa was Ronald McDonald. No, seriously. In his retirement, he was a magician and a clown, and was hired in the 70s by McDonalds to go to the franchise grand openings all over Southern California. 

I live in South Lake Tahoe in the mountains on the border of Northern CA and NV. My favorite fact about the lake is that it could EASILY fit all of Manhattan (including the buildings to their tippy top) inside the lake! Lake Tahoe is the second deepest lake in the U.S., with a maximum depth of 1,645 feet, and it’s about 22 mi long and 12 mi wide; while Manhattan Island is 13.4 miles long, and 2.3 miles wide at its widest, and the tallest building is the Freedom Tower, which is 1,368 ft to the roof (not including the spire)—like I said, Manhattan could fit in Lake Tahoe. OK so that mostly wasn’t about me, but still SO AMAZING.