Niwot alumna directs social marketing for GoPro

It was 2010, and after her Niwot High School graduation and a summer slinging burgers, Catherine "Katie" Marylander began her first semester at the University of Colorado Boulder, as an undeclared student. After hearing some of her peers talking about applying for the School of Journalism (now the College of Media, Communication and Information) the Niwot High School grad was struck with inspiration-advertising seemed like the perfect way to combine a passion for writing with tangible business skills.

When Marylander was in school, the future of media was murky: print journalism was declining while social networking platforms were on the rise. More than a decade later, Marylander finds herself leading the very field that some media professionals feared not so long ago.

Marylander is the Director of Social Marketing at GoPro, a publicly traded technology company specializing in action cameras. GoPro's social media presence includes over 50M followers, over 70 social handles and an international footprint in 23+ countries.

"I manage a team and oversee the strategy for organic social worldwide," she explained. "I am lucky enough to have traveled to many of the countries where we have a local presence, including Germany, France, Mexico, South Korea, Australia, Japan and Southeast Asia." Marylander's work has taken her to The Yacht Week in Croatia, the Tour de France in Paris, and she has skied the Austrian Alps and the mountains of Japan. But the GoPro Mountain Games in Vail is one of her favorites because she gets to come home to Niwot for a visit.

Marylander's career thus far has been as exciting as the adventures the company's cameras capture. After more than eight years with the company-she moved to the Bay Area in Aug. 2014 and began her journey with GoPro not long after-Marylander has grown alongside the social media world. Starting out as a social media community manager, she began writing copy for the company; now she develops campaign strategy.

"Social media is a quickly evolving and world-changing phenomenon," Marylander said. "At GoPro, we have won a Shorty Award for the brand with the Best Instagram Presence and are one of the few channels on YouTube to reach over one billion views."

Notably, GoPro has won more than one Shorty Award and has been identified as one of the best brands on social media by industry blogs like eclincher and radarr.

But as much as Marylander loves collaborating with colleagues, traveling for work (when she went to Bali, she was scuba certified for work) and chasing down new stories, sometimes she enjoys stepping back from big adventures and relishing the smaller ones.

For instance, she adopted a 1-year-old puppy named Bruna, and teaches a weekly yoga class at a studio in San Francisco.

"I love the community at the studio and the opportunity to regularly do something completely different than my day job," she said. Nonetheless, Marylander loves her work in social media and she plans to continue GoPro's reputation as a social media leader. "We have a growing team and I see a lot of opportunities in the future!"