Sonia Says: Social Media Coach, Marketing Consultant

Consultant, coach & creator supporting media, nonprofits & startups. Helping you grow, connect & stand out.

recent posts

about

Sonia Dasgupta is a strategist, storyteller, and founder of Sonia Says — a creative consultancy helping brands, leaders, and changemakers grow through purposeful storytelling and smart social strategy. With years of experience leading digital content and social teams across media organizations — including WJLA-TV, WUSA9, WJZ-TV, and CBS — Sonia has built a career at the intersection of journalism, audience engagement, and brand development. Her work has driven millions of impressions, built communities, and helped public figures and organizations show up online with clarity and confidence. Today, through Sonia Says, she offers strategy, coaching, and content services designed to help clients stand out authentically — pairing creativity with data, and purpose with personality. When she’s not crafting strategy or mentoring the next generation of journalists, Sonia can usually be found near the water, exploring new cities, or creating something that tells a story worth sharing.

Category: Uncategorized

  • Rethinking journalism for the next generation

    There’s a persistent narrative in journalism that young people just don’t care about the news. But that’s not what’s actually happening. What’s changing is how they encounter it. A recent report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism makes this clear:young audiences are still engaging with information—but not in the ways newsrooms were…

  • Local news is no longer one industry

    For years, we’ve talked about “local news” as if it were a single, unified industry facing a shared crisis. It’s not. Local journalism in 2026 is operating across multiple, very different business models: each with its own revenue engine, ownership structure, and definition of sustainability. The future of local news won’t be decided by one…

  • The 3 types of posts that actually build trust

    If your content isn’t building trust, it may be missing balance. Here are the three types of posts that create credibility over time—and how to rotate them. One of the biggest misconceptions about content creation is that success comes from posting more. In reality, trust comes from posting with intention. If your content feels flat,…

  • How to turn your expertise into content (without feeling cringe)

    How to turn your expertise into content (without feeling cringe)

    If the idea of “putting yourself out there” online makes you uncomfortable, you’re not alone. A lot of smart, experienced professionals hesitate to create content because they associate it with self-promotion, hot takes, or performance. It can feel awkward to talk about what you know especially if you’ve spent your career letting your work speak…

  • Publishers, AI summaries, and the fight for fair value

    Publishers, AI summaries, and the fight for fair value

    For years, publishers have adapted to every major shift in digital distribution from social feeds to mobile alerts to search algorithms that changed overnight. But the rise of AI-generated summaries marks a different kind of inflection point. This time, the issue isn’t just reach or rankings. It’s control, compensation, and the future economics of journalism.…

  • What digital leaders are predicting for 2026: AI, Trust, Community & Brand

    What digital leaders are predicting for 2026: AI, Trust, Community & Brand

    As we head into 2026, digital leaders aren’t talking about incremental shifts — they’re talking about transformation across media, tech, and audience behavior. The Nieman Lab asked digital leaders across major organizations to predict what’s coming in 2026. Here are the trends shaping the year ahead: 🔹 1. AI Is Everywhere — But It’s a…

  • The social media reality check newsrooms need in 2026

    The social media reality check newsrooms need in 2026

    Everyone keeps saying Facebook is dead. The data says otherwise. If your newsroom needs a New Year’s resolution, here’s one: stop building digital strategies based on assumptions — and start building them on audience behavior. According to Nov. 2025 report of Americans social media use in 2025 from the Pew Research Center, YouTube remains the…

  • Why brands are finally treating storytelling as a core business function

    Why brands are finally treating storytelling as a core business function

    Something stood out to me this week that gets at a shift happening across how organizations think about brand and audience connection. The Baltimore Ravens recently posted a job description for a Head of Corporate Communications that caught my eye — not because it was about football, but because of how it framed the role:…

  • When everything looks real, trust becomes the strategy

    When everything looks real, trust becomes the strategy

    Recently, Instagram’s Adam Mosseri put words to a shift many creators, journalists, and media leaders have already been navigating: In a world increasingly filled with AI-generated content, authenticity is no longer assumed. That statement landed for a reason. Not because it introduced something new, but because it confirmed something fundamental about where media is headed.…

  • Digital teams are the newsroom

    Digital teams are the newsroom

    DIGITAL TEAMS ARE THE NEWSROOM. Yeah, I said it. In many newsrooms I’ve worked in, and in conversations across the industry, there’s STILL a divide between digital teams and the rest of the newsroom. And as we head into 2026, it doesn’t make sense. Digital platforms now reach the majority of the audience, yet they’re…