Nathanael Conway, CEO of Wilmington-based
Blue Roll LLC, is working on branching out his production company into the communications world.
Conway has jumped on board with a nonprofit organization that will help gear his move for the next phase of Blue Roll.
Conway in 2018 started Blue Roll, a business that creates video for branding, marketing and awareness, providing local Black-owned businesses with marketing content. The company has grown since, working with larger local organizations and nonprofits.
Blue Roll has been creating visual, audio and text content for social media and does social media consulting for organizations.
Now he aims to not only take Blue Roll into communications but also work on projects outside of the Wilmington area.
“We’re moving from local and just deliverables to macro, almost nationwide, but with a high-level comms strategy,” Conway said.
Blue Roll continues with a number of local projects, including work with several Black-owned barbershops and the Northside Food Co-op project, which aims to bring a grocery store to Wilmington’s Northside neighborhood.
Earlier this year, Conway was hired as an employee with Washington, D.C.-based ProInspire, a nonprofit organization.
His work with ProInspire focuses on racial equity and leadership development, facilitating conversations and initiatives with social impact leaders across organizations, he said.
Conway is leading those efforts with organizations such as The Kresge Foundation, LIFT Inc., West- Ed, Fund the People and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Conway directly supports the nonprofit by assessing, directing and implementing company communications to facilitate discussions in diversity, inclusion and equity, he said.
He is also designing and creating digital content about how other organizations and philanthropic entities can get involved and “break through social media noise,” he said.
While Conway is working with ProInspire, he plans to maintain his outside business with Blue Roll.
Locally, Blue Roll has had a chance to test out some of this development in the communications space with organizations such as the YWCA Lower Cape Fear and New Hanover Regional Medical Center, he said.
With the YWCA, Blue Roll helped with digital and social media consulting and created video content. For NHRMC, Blue Roll created video, graphics and pictures and conducted social media and advertising consulting.
“A lot of people who do communications deliver on strategy and not on deliverables … so, moving into communication strategies and the overall high-level idea with an extreme expertise of those deliverables, that’s where we’re getting involved,” Conway said. “I foresee Blue Roll pivoting into communications strategy and continuing to specialize in video production.”
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