ABOUT

So what do you actually do?

I am the Head of Influencer Marketing at FCB Inferno, a creative agency.

I work on talent-led partnerships, from identifying a celebrity to be the face of a phone brand to establishing a collective of creative individuals to front a car launch and everything that falls between. 

What has your career path been?

Throughout school and university, I had my heart set on being a journalist. I studied English Literature at university, was an editor for my university newspaper and interned at national publications. Once I graduated, I travelled around North America, returned home and realised that the career I had my heart set on wasn’t for me. After striving to be a journalist for five years, my enthusiasm faded and I became drawn to digitally-focused, quickly evolving industries.

I decided to explore internship opportunities in any career that sparked my interest, which is where I stumbled upon influencer marketing, a profession I had never even heard of before and that didn’t even exist when I was at school.

I enjoyed the challenge of exploring something new, so to enable me to trial this career path, I spent months working weekends in retail to support my Monday to Friday internship, which proved to be a busy yet incredibly rewarding experience.

The company I joined was thriving at the time and despite being an intern, it awarded me with the opportunity to learn quickly and manage accounts I had always been fond of, such as Levi’s, Amazon and Johnson & Johnson. This led to me being offered a full-time job at the company, where I continued to learn and develop.

Ever since then, my passion has only grown for the industry. I’ve had the opportunity to work at a combination of large global agencies and start-ups, leading my client portfolio to include a variety of leading brands in the fashion, beauty, technology, automotive and FMCG industries.

This has allowed me to explore additional skillsets such as event planning, running display advertising and social media management, all in aid of developing more innovative and successful influencer marketing activities. 

What is the best part of your job?

A real highlight is unearthing the breadth of the term ‘influencer’, as it really is boundless.

My job has enabled me to connect and work with incredibly talented individuals, ranging from illustrators to magicians, from celebrities to activists. This really brings the cliche term that ‘no day is the same’ to life, as you have the opportunity to develop creative campaigns from ideation all the way through to implication whilst working with truly inspiring individuals alongside an incredibly talented team.

Why do you do your job?

I love the ever-changing nature of the industry, it continually keeps you on your toes.

You never know which social media platform, content format or interest will be trending in a year’s time (if we knew, we would have all invested in shares of Zoom pre-pandemic).

It drives a need to stay on the ball, to be receptive to change and to embrace innovation. No two clients, projects or influencers are the same, making every campaign a truly unique and exciting experience.

One piece of advice for someone starting in your role?

Think about who inspires you. It may not be people’s immediate assumption of who an ‘influencer’ is, as many often associate the term with individuals such as reality TV stars. Someone who inspires you could be a chef, a yoga instructor, a DJ, a relative or even the TikTok pool cleaning guy.

And don’t forget to have fun with campaigns, think outside of the box and be creative.

DAY IN THE LIFE

Lockdown has changed things a little, swapping my 05:30 wake up calls for comparatively luxurious 07:00 starts. Once up, I try and squeeze in a home workout before popping on a podcast to listen to whilst getting ready for work.

I love a bit of organisation and create a prioritised to-do list with time allocations set against tasks at the end of each day. Each morning, I start by scanning over the day’s list and checking my calendar to see what meetings are booked in, before having a quick think about when I’ll be able to pause for lunch and some fresh air. Making time to leave the house each day has been so important since the first lockdown begun, it really boosts productivity.

My first meeting of the day is often a team catch up. I sit within the communications department and we check in on what’s running, what’s coming up and most importantly, how everyone is doing. Other regular meetings tend to involve project catch ups, all with the shared goal of moving plans forward and striving to surpass the campaign objectives.

I tend to work on 5-10 campaigns at a time, all of which will be at varying stages ranging from receiving a brief all the way through to reporting. Most days will involve a combination of the below frequent tasks:

• Influencer strategy – which involves coming up with a strategic plan in response to a client brief, where you consider what a successful project would look like. This encompasses looking into factors such as data, insights, tools and industry trends to create a thorough plan.

• Influencer identification - discovering relevant talent to work with or reviewing recommendations from a colleague. This includes a combination of manual research and tools to assess the most suitable individuals for a project.

• Creative treatments - establishing and developing creative ideas to guide and inspire the influencers we partner with and their audiences. Once formed, the idea(s) will be written up in a brief to be sent to the influencers.

• Project management - ongoing communication with clients, influencers and the internal team to ensure that everything runs to plan. This includes managing campaign budgets, overseeing the approval of influencer content, developing campaign timelines and more.

• Developing our agency offering - reviewing and progressing our internal tools, processes and key documents to ensure we are working both efficiently and methodically, whilst staying ahead of current trends.

• Teamwork - checking in with our fantastic team to support with training, briefing them on tasks and working collaboratively.

No two days are the same, with additional tasks including proudly being part of ‘Belong’ (FCB Inferno’s Diversity and Inclusion committee), being involved in new business pitches and writing thought leadership pieces. 

Once I wrap up work, I either offer mentoring for vulnerable young people through a local charity, or I head straight to the kitchen to get started on making dinner!