Amani Pyron ’25 came to Berry to study psychology, and she added a communication minor after working for Viking Fusion and the digital marketing department. By her senior year, Amani stepped into the role of student director of marketing and communication for the Office of Belonging and Community Engagement. She also developed a deep interest in consumer psychology, a field of study that helps organizations understand why people are buying certain products or services and how to tailor their marketing and messaging. She shares how she’s merged the rigor of academics with PR, writing and branding skills built through LifeWorks positions.
My psychology coursework has provided me with a strong theoretical foundation to understand the motivating drives behind our behavior, but the true beauty of my knowledge gained is from my communication classes. One class specifically is Visual Rhetoric, where we spend the semester learning how to spot, utilize and decipher different codes and Gestalt principles found across various media.
Training in social media
During my three years at Viking Fusion, many of my efforts were spent curating a voice for the organization through our Instagram, which was the predominant way we communicated to the Berry community and our followers. I was able to hone those skills at the Office of Belonging and Community Engagement, where rather than creating, I am following the pre-existing model and voice already established by the office's strategic branding.
Both experiences have taught me each account has its own style when speaking to its audience. It is important to do the work of learning the language, to best find ways to integrate and elevate brand content in a way that will continue to engage and draw in an audience.
Mastering the art of storytelling
Writing for Berry's digital marketing team was truly the beginning of my journey into branding and marketing. I continue to find lingering echoes in the work I do now. Much of that has to do with our emphasis on storytelling. Crafting a Berry Story has nothing to do with regurgitating a template but rather carving out the root of the person being highlighted. It is the act of trying to retrace the steps of a journey that one has never traveled. It is about finding ways to add context to their experiences that may not jump out from their resume or LinkedIn profile.
Taking knowledge to the next level
My role as the student director of marketing and communication for the Office of Belonging and Community Engagement challenges my skills by showing me what it is like to work for an organization with an already cultivated voice. This brand has taken years to build and is an amalgamation of the efforts by professional and student staff who have worked to make this office what it is today.
My honors thesis is focused on parasocial relationships [when an individual person develops a sense of connection with someone they don’t know, like a celebrity or media personality]. These relationships exist only in the mind of the individual, who experiences a bond despite the lack of reciprocity, but more specifically, I am looking to measure how great of a mediating effect parasocial relationships have on our social behavior.
The greatest benchmark I have seen from my experiences with research is my personal development. I came to college having never searched for peer-reviewed sources. Now I conduct lab research with a parasocial relationships measure I created with the help of one of my thesis committee members, Dr. Victor Bissonnette. Acknowledging this level of growth is greater than any significance I may find in my data, but that would be nice, too!
Story by senior Amani Pyron
