Retired USAF Colonel, first female Thunderbird pilot, White House Fellow, and National Women's Hall of Fame inductee. We built her social presence from the ground up.
Nicole Malachowski had one of the most compelling personal brands imaginable: a decorated military career, a historic role as the first female Thunderbird pilot, and a powerful message about excellence, leadership, and resilience. What she needed was a social presence that could carry that story to the people who needed to hear it.
Bastion Agency was brought in to grow her social media presence and build a community around her message of Excellence Unscripted. My role was to develop the strategy, create content, and manage her Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts.
Goals
Grow Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn followings significantly
Build an engaged community around her message
Establish her as a thought leader in leadership, aviation, and women's advocacy
Support her speaking career through increased visibility
Built content around Nicole's expertise, lived experience, and values: her historic career, her advocacy for tick-borne illness awareness, and her message of excellence and inclusion.
Developed distinct content approaches for Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, calibrated to how each audience engages and what performs on each platform.
Actively engaged with followers through comments, DMs, and replies, building real relationships rather than just broadcasting content.
Developed reels and short-form video content that connected her speaking style with social audiences, including the Women's History Month video that went viral.
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Over 8 months, Nicole's Instagram following grew from 15K to 30K and her LinkedIn following grew from 12K to approximately 15K. Total impressions across all three platforms reached 5.4 million, with 230K engagements. The strategy was rooted in organic creative posting, with paid boosting applied to content that was already performing well organically.
Engagement
Hundreds of comments, likes, and shares per post across all three platforms.
Brand Recognition
Nicole became a recognized thought leader in leadership, aviation, and diversity and inclusion.
Speaking Engagements
Increased online presence directly contributed to more speaking opportunities and a wider audience reach.
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Cross-network audience growth: 19,227 net new followers, up 317%
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Cross-network performance summary, Oct 2022 – May 2023
New followers by platform
18,657
new followers
Twitter / X
570
new followers
2,906
new followers