If you’ve ever liked a Facebook post or replied to a tweet from the USC Shoah Foundation, you’ve met Deanna Pitre – at least virtually.

Pitre is USC Shoah Foundation’s social media coordinator, responsible for maintaining and producing content for its Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and YouTube accounts. She also created and manages the Through Testimony blog on the Institute’s website, which provides a place for staff and colleagues to write about their experiences working with testimony and the USC Shoah Foundation.

Before joining the staff a year ago, Pitre graduated from Long Beach State University and had positions at KPCC and KJazz radio stations and the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles. Her job at the Shoah Foundation draws on her passions for social media, working for nonprofits, and her interest in learning about the Holocaust and genocide, Pitre said.

Every day, Pitre writes tweets, Facebook and Google+ posts, moderates the YouTube channel and monitors each platform’s analytics to ensure the posts are resonating with USC Shoah Foundation’s followers. Each platform has a slightly different audience, she said; Twitter attracts teachers who are using USC Shoah Foundation’s educational materials, while Facebook has more of a general audience who may have heard about the Institute in the news or from a friend.

A favorite post of hers recently was about Hessy Taft, a Jewish Holocaust survivor whose baby photo was used by the Nazis as an example of the “perfect Aryan” child. Taft speaks about the incident in her testimony in the Visual History Archive.

“We were able to post a fantastic clip from her testimony on our YouTube channel which was shared across all our platforms. It really resonated with people from all walks of life and it picked up a lot of media attention,” Pitre said. “My goal is for things we post on social media to leverage traditional media as well. It’s nice to know people are relating to what we put up.”

Pitre said she especially enjoys interacting with people from other countries. One woman from Peru wrote to the Facebook page asking for educational materials in Spanish so she could teach her daughter and her daughter’s friends about the Holocaust, since they didn’t know anything about it. A teacher from Czech Republic wrote a blog post about how testimony changed how she teaches about the Holocaust.

In the next few years, Pitre wants to continue to increase USC Shoah Foundation’s followers, especially among high school students and other young people since they are the ones using the educational materials of IWitness and Echoes and Reflections.

Pitre said she believes strongly in USC Shoah Foundation’s message and its potential to reach people around the world through social media. Even though the subject matter can be intense, she has seen how much people want to engage with USC Shoah Foundation and hear about its work – and how important it is to continue to share the testimonies of genocide survivors.

“People want to hear these stories but they want to hear the good we’re doing with them. It’s rewarding to share such an important message,” Pitre said. “Anti-semitism and genocide aren’t going away. But by a tweet here and a Facebook picture there we’re making a difference in the world.”