Successful Campaign? Ask the Influencer

[00:00:00] Jessy: Megan, I’m super excited to have you on the show today for a number of different reasons, but first and foremost, welcome, how are you? 

[00:00:32] Megan: Thank you, I’m great. Thanks for having me. I love the WIIM Community. I love the WIIM podcast, so this is such a treat being here. 

[00:00:40] Jessy: Yay, it’s long overdue. 

[00:00:43] Megan: Really long time coming.

[00:00:44] Jessy: One of you wants. I’m so glad that you are on. We’re from one part of Brooklyn to the other in normal times. I feel like I would’ve looked at you across a table, done this person, but like nonetheless, it’s great to see your beautiful face, and we show the podcast now on, YouTube so people can see you.

[00:01:05] Megan: Yes, which is awesome. Hello everyone. 

[00:01:09] Jessy: So I am so excited to dive into a little bit about your work, your professional history, and like really exciting cool stuff that you’ve done in influencer marketing. Learn from influencer marketing, and you’re currently at Squarespace, which is doing really interesting stuff.

So before we dive into a lot of those topics, I just teased, I’d love to just hear a little bit about like your professional journey. So I’d love to hear that from you. 

[00:01:38] Megan: Yeah, for sure. So I have been in the influencer marketing industry for about six years now, and I fell into it right after college, as I feel like so many people in this industry do especially those of us who have been in it for, five plus years. I feel like a lot of us just fell into it. It wasn’t really something we could study in school or really set out to be. So I actually joined this space through community management. So my first role was at her campus media, which kind of operates like a full service marketing agency targeting Gen Z and millennial women.

So her campus, at the time, offered all sorts of different marketing activations, social, digital campaigns, experiential and events. And one of those other arms was influencer marketing. So when I joined, I actually joined as a community manager of their network of influencers that they worked with, which is called the influence her collective.

So my job originally started off, as, curating this community of young women who wanted to become content creators and giving them, a community where they could chat with each other, learn from each other benefit from different resources that we offered them so on and so forth.

that community. The influencer collective is the talent pool that her campus at the time tapped into for any influencer marketing campaign requests they got from clients. Throughout my three and a half years there, I moved from this community side over to the marketing side and got really involved with, the end-to-end campaign process.

I would help our clients, pick the right influencers to work with, do that sort of outreach, being the quote unquote middleman between the client and the influencer, making sure that both of them had a great experience. So that really gave me a very broad in a very good experience in influencer marketing just right off the bat, being in that agency setting really helped just learning, how different clients and different brands approach they’re influencer programs. 

So working with clients in all different verticals, with all different budgets, with different goals and of course just working with a really great group of creators that were college age, just up and coming emerging influencers. 

So that’s where I got my start, and after three and a half years, I had built that program from a one woman department to a four women department and felt really good about the experience I had under my belt, but really wanted to take that in-house. So that is what led me to away in the fall of 2019. I loved the away brand and still do, and was really interested in the travel space and so I really wanted to take that experience that I had and invest it in one company, in one brand that I was really excited.

I was happy to join the team then, and it was a little bit of a different setup. A way had pretty established influencer marketing initiatives in place, so I was working with, five or six other women in that space, and doing that same sort of end-to-end influencer marketing part process, but in-house this time. 

So that was my first experience of working, not necessarily in the media space where everybody’s working on, digital or social or something in the marketing realm, but to a brand that had, functions in all different areas. So I was able to meet people who were focused in product design or legal or, these different functions of the brand that I just had never been introduced before. 

That was an awesome experience. Unfortunately, COVID hit the travel industry pretty hard, so when I was furloughed from my role at Away, I looked for my next move, which ended up being an influencer marketing manager at Rugs USA And that was a really cool experience as well because Rugs USA previously hadn’t done any brand marketing, including influencer marketing, and I was the second person hired just after my boss to work, on brand marketing. 

So I had this really fun opportunity to develop an influencer marketing strategy from scratch, which was just such a unique challenge and really fun to do for a home brand, especially during covid when, home brands are really successful and it’s what people are really excited about.

Was there for about a year and I built up a program that included micro influencer campaigns around 10 pole events. So I’m always on macro content, evergreen content, as well as a smaller scale brand ambassador program. And then I got the opportunity that I’m at today with Squarespace, which has been such a great experience for me. 

I joined the team in September as a team lead of their brand ambassador program. So Squarespace works with influencers in a few different ways on a few different teams, but my team sits under brand marketing and under partnerships, and our brand ambassador program is our bread and butter of our customer community.

So Squarespace loves to feature our best and most engaged customers in our marketing material. So, there was this need to have, of this community of customers that is, right there, partnerships are already established with them and we’re able to work with them on different marketing initiatives.

So that’s how the brand ambassador program was born. So I was brought on to help that all the way through, from customer identifications to trend analyses, contract negotiations all the way through final wrap up, and that has been a huge, fun role to take on and just get my hands into what they’ve already established and really scale it and grow it to the best that it can be.

Yes, long-winded answer, but that’s my background spiel, really having gotten the experience of working with influencers across all levels of following different industries and verticals, US versus international in both agency and in-house. 

[00:07:32] Jessy: I am so intrigued by like your journey in particular, cause I love that you’ve had, agency in-house, like micro to macro like you, good for you for getting all of that experience. 

[00:07:46] Megan: It wasn’t intentional. Obviously I think my move from agency to in-house was but I again feel really lucky to have gotten that kind of agency setting experience right off the bat. And it’s something that I’d recommend if someone’s interested in the industry and just doesn’t really know where to start.

Cause that gives you a lot of different experiences in one role and, I didn’t expect to go from one to another brand so quickly. I really was hoping to invest my time at the time in Away and at Rugs USA, but these opportunities just came up. And of course, COVID kind of threw a wrench in things at time, worked out the way it worked out where I was able to dip my toes in different areas and learn what I like and learn what I dislike.

And now I’m at the point where I’m really happy where I’ve landed, and definitely wanna spend some time investing in, this brand, in this space, and tech is really interesting to me as well. So I’m glad it worked out that way. And I’ve obviously learned so much, along the way.

[00:08:38] Jessy: So I believe that, things totally happen for a reason. Some people think I’m super woowoo by saying that, but I think it’s super dope that you’re at Squarespace. I think it’s so cool that like you’re in the text, I love like all things tech. So like finding that interesting collaboration between like tech influencers and perhaps non-tech influencers who just use tech.

I can imagine you guys are doing really interesting stuff, so I would love to ask you, Megan, like what are you guys focused on in this coming year, 2022 as it relates to influencer marketing? 

[00:09:18] Megan: Yeah, it’s great question. For my team personally and for our brand ambassador program, I think 2022 is gonna be a really exciting year. The roots of this program were, dug out and put in a couple years ago. So I think this year we’re really gonna hit our groove. One of our main goals is scaling, so I think we’re gonna hit our groove in terms of getting the amount of brand ambassadors and the volume of content and the amount of brand awareness that we really want in it from our program.

Working with some amazing customers in different spaces, I know you had mentioned before that in the tech space you can work with tech influencers, but there are also so many other influencers that qualify because they’re using this tech day to day. So that’s one of the really cool things about, working with our customer base, is that it includes anyone from, a photographer to a fashion designer, to a small business owner, whether thats in the culinary wellness or design space, 

it’s really anybody and everybody can use Squarespace. So it gives us just such free reign over who we’re working with. So we’re really excited to expand internationally. So we have a few key markets in mind overseas that we’re gonna be really developing a little bit further in.

So excited for that as well. 

[00:10:29] Jessy: That’s pretty cool. And I’m sure I can only imagine that along the way you’ll find, different nuances in terms of influencers and how they interact and work with brands in different markets, in different parts of the world. Have you already experienced that at all in your current work?

[00:10:46] Megan: Yeah, so I had a little bit of experience with that at Away and working with some partners in Australia, in the UK and just noting differences from market to market. For example, we had one really, best selling suitcase in the US and it totally differed for the case in the Netherlands, or just little details like that were really interesting and helped inform our strategy.

Other things to consider were, even just little nitty gritty details like time zones and time and date formats or we always considered like those big bank holidays in the UK and Australia. Those are big moments there, which we wouldn’t even consider maybe here in the US but are great to weave into our strategy and really, leverage if thats an opportunity or a void if we need to. 

But it’s been fun kind of learning all these different nuances between markets and I’m really thankful here at Squarespace, we have an awesome international team and go-to-market team. So we have some international market leads on the ground in some locations.

They’re really helpful in contributing to those little, nuances, I can’t think of a better word, but those differences that you would only really know if you were there and you grew up in that culture. So it’s fun to learn those different things. 

[00:12:06] Jessy: That’s pretty cool. I don’t know, a couple things that I heard you say. One of ’em is, how valuable any brand could get feedback from influencers in working with ’em in different markets. And it’s really like boots on the grounds or like from a consumer perspective, and I don’t know if there’s any opportunities to like, share that back with the product team or I can just imagine like holistically that type of information could be really interesting and beneficial, those insights taken.

But I love that you guys have actual, people from Squarespace in those different regions because it’s like any business opportunity that you’re working with, a variety of different people and to be able to really, truly speak to those people, I can only imagine that it’s really beneficial to have somebody from the company, who like lives and breathes it and just like understands that and can hopefully guide your internal teams to be able to prep, to be able to like, 

[00:13:05] Megan: absolutely. 

[00:13:05] Jessy: Yeah, that’s really interesting. What a cool, interesting thing that Squarespace has the ability to enact. 

[00:13:11] Megan: Also very helpful logistically with time zones. So we’re not, communicating with influencers who are, 12 hours behind or ahead of us, and having to email and wanting to get back to them in a timely manner. It also helps with those little details too.

[00:13:27] Jessy: Is it? So are these people that you work with on a regular basis? Cause I’m also just wondering, like from your day to day, are you working regular hours or are you having to deal with people in different time zones? And talk to us a little bit about the nuances of that, just as a professional. 

[00:13:42] Megan: Yeah personally I think Squarespace has just an amazing company culture, so with that comes a work-life balance and I’m working East Coast hours with my other colleagues here in New York, which is awesome.

So I’m never expected to stay late or sacrifice, my time at home for work time, but we make it work because we do have those international partners that we touch base with often. I think the only difficulty is getting somebody on a European time zone and somebody on Australian time zone where there’s quite literally not a time that works for all three of us.

But we are always touching base constantly in touch. We have a number of different communication methods. We’re on Slack, we’re on email, we’re always doing, video calls, so it’s great to be in touch with those people for sure. 

[00:14:30] Jessy: That’s so cool. And I’d love to hear a little bit more like, feel free to brag on Squarespace , when you’re telling me they have a great company culture.

I think that a lot of companies are striving to figure out how to cultivate that for their teams, given that everyone’s working from home and just like work looks so different nowadays. So just as an employee, like what really stands out to you about it? What have they been able to do really well?

[00:14:57] Megan: Yeah, and I can only speak to the experience of having joined, during remote working time. So I joined in September, so I’m excited to see what it’s like being back in the office. And I have had a chance to visit our New York headquarters, which is great. But yeah, from the moment I even started, interviewing for the position I have I had a really great experience. 

I felt that anyone I talked to from Squarespace during the interview process was really thorough, really thoughtful. I always got follow ups, they made it clear that they were open to any questions, they were always there for support throughout the process. 

And then when I joined that, just increased doubly. Everybody that I’ve worked with and everybody that I’ve met is not only so smart and savvy and skilled in their field of expertise, but they’re also just so incredibly kind and open.

Joining any new company is always a little bit nerve-wracking to be a new employee, but, , my colleagues at Squarespace definitely made that an easy transition and just everybody’s been so open to answering any questions or offering their support here or there, so that really makes a big difference.

And yeah, we’ve got a great employee engagement team. So they also offer some great benefits and different perks of the job as well. So that helped sweeten the deal and it definitely just reinforces the feeling that, our company cares about us as employees, so yeah, it is been a great experience. 

[00:16:28] Jessy: That’s really good to know. I heard a lot of interesting things in that, and again, like we have people who lead companies or who are starting companies or who are just like a, manager of people and like just sharing this information.

I feel like it’s incredibly valuable, especially as we all learn together, like what this new work life can look like. And it’s so important, it’s like, have a work-life balance and just keep it a really positive, healthy, great working environment. So any tips and tricks and anything that like you’ve just experienced, I think it’s so helpful to share, so I really appreciate that.

I’d love to dive a little bit more into like specifically about the social content that you guys have created and are creating. How do you guys just, especially like in the tech space, like I love the, I don’t know, I’ve wanted to have you on the podcast for a while.

 I love the company Away. I think it’s so cool, so I would have you on back then. I’d also just think you’re awesome and I wanna hear your thoughts. I love though, the idea of working at a company like Squarespace with influencers, because there’s just so many different avenues that you can go down.

I can imagine that you don’t feel so pigeon holder, everything is so mundane at all, because I can imagine you’re working on so many different types of creatives and campaigns with different types of influencers, and that intrigues me. The broad scope of influencer work that you can do, how do you guys decide which social platforms to create content on? . 

[00:18:02] Megan: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think that’s something that’s obviously been relevant to, anyone in the industry and, going kind of brand to brand or role to role, that always varies. 

So in general, I think there are different platforms for different purposes and in some roles that I’ve had, brands have been really focused on creating content on a specific platform and others have been a little bit more broad about it. I personally think it’s best to try to onboard creators that cover a diversity of platforms.

I am always really impressed when a creator is actually active on multiple, or you could also fill those gaps with influencers that are really dedicated to one and somebody else that’s really dedicated to another. Instagram has been, a through line throughout all the experiences that I’ve had and has always been a solid options where creators can illustrate something that they want to, and emphasize it in the caption and just continue that storytelling across time.

So that’s always been, again, a through line or the number one universal standard that we use in influencer marketing. YouTube is a space that I’ve dabbled in and definitely wanna explore further. I think that’s great for Longformed storytelling, and there are communities on YouTube that are just so engaged and so dedicated.

I think of myself as a viewer and who I subscribe to or have followed in the past and just how, excited I am when a new video comes out, or really watching that video from start to end. So I think that’s something that, I would want to tap into as marketer. And then obviously can’t not talk about TikTok, and and Instagram reels, but I think that has been such a great opportunity for more like snappy, digestible content.

I think that’s just something that we as consumers really love to watch and consume. So we’re definitely exploring that space as well. I think any platform that kind of emerges is worth looking into a little bit. And now that TikTok has proven that it’s here to stay there’s def it’s just rife with opportunity.

And then, in other roles and throughout my experience, I’ve also explored those kind of platforms that may fall through the cracks. So blogs, that was a huge thing when I started my career. We really focused on finding bloggers who could tell a story through text and.

Take some high quality photos and really had an audience on their own platform, and then, platforms like Twitter and Facebook, or even LinkedIn. I personally don’t prioritize them for storytelling, but I think they can really amplify any message that an influencers try to get across for a brand, the answer is everywhere and anything, it just depends on your goals. 

[00:20:42] Jessy: Entirely, and I think that’s valuable, cause perhaps there are people starting out, or maybe there’s people who are listening to this podcast or watching it on YouTube and saying okay, so like I just started at a new company and they’re looking to me for that sort of advice. Where do we go next? We see the opportunity, we’re willing to invest in it, tell me, using your expertise, what do we do? 

So with your goals, depending on your goals, I don’t know, question for you, you talk about the couple platforms that you maybe feel like the most experienced in, and what goals would a company have that would make it a good decision to explore those specific platforms? 

[00:21:23] Megan: That’s a great point. I think just some things to consider are factors to measure what you’re, prioritizing would be first of all, what’s your main goal?

Are you trying to increase brand awareness? Are you trying to get some brand lift or are you focusing on, those bottom of the funnel metrics, like sales and conversions and clicks and things like that? When you’re talking about brand awareness, you might be looking at some metrics like impressions or reach or engagements, and there are some platforms that just generally, get more of those. 

And of course everything has the asterisk of, it depends, and it depends on the creator. For example, TikTok at the moment if you find a solid creator on TikTok, they’re gonna really bring in those views, and TikTok famously, will have a really high engagement rate compared to something like Instagram.

So if you’re really looking to connect with people and get their attention on you, get those eyeballs on some content and having them engage with it. TikTok might be a good place to go if you’re really looking to drive clicks and conversions, you wanna look somewhere where it’s really easy to drop a link and really easy to push that link to your audience.

So maybe that’s a blog with, that has a good amount of readers, or maybe that’s a YouTube video with some affiliate links below, or oftentimes that’s an Instagram story with the link button now. So again, it depends on your goals, but I think those are the things to take into consideration is like one, what’s the goal?

Like awareness, affinity, education, is it actual conversion? And then think about how you wanna measure those things. So is it impressions, engagements, clicks? Do you do a brand lift study? And that will help guide you in that direction of which platform to choose to activate on. 

[00:23:10] Jessy: So I love that and I appreciate that. I also wanna use this opportunity to pick your brain based on all this experience to say, what tools are you using to create awesome work on? And this could be newsletters that you subscribe to, to just stay up to date on trends and or this could be like tactical, like tools that you use to find influencers, keep yourself organized, take it wherever you want, but I wanna know if you could share like really good tools that you guys are using or you personally are using. 

[00:23:42] Megan: No, that’s fun. And I always love hearing what other people use. Shameless Plug for the WIIM group, that has been just such a solid resource for me, just being in this niche industry and having these very specific questions or very specific needs, referring to a group of women who are also in this industry has been extremely helpful.

The community group, the email newsletter, those have been just immensely helpful. I also subscribe to a couple other newsletters. I think one was from Insider that kind of focuses on the influencer marketing industry, a lot about YouTube and TikTok which is fun. I got Influence Weekly and some other newsletters.

And then in terms of actual tools for, completing the work that I do. I have and continue to use a lot of different softwares out there just for project management. So I love Google Suite. I love using Google Calendar and just organizing myself with reminders, using Google Drive for different kinds of materials.

And then I also like some project management tools like Asana or Airtable really help keep you organized, Slack, big fan of Slack. So those really help me stay organized, stay on top of things, see where I am in different processes with different relationships. And then have been exploring influencer marketing platforms pretty much since I entered, the space.

When I was at her campus, we were looking for a way to manage that community of about 4,000 influencers at the time. So we did a lot of demoing with various different brands and actually ended up building our own kind of in-house platform, which is a really cool experience in and of itself. And then I’ve also, been familiar with using some other platforms like Creator IQ, Maverick and Grin, which can make that management so much easier.

Especially if you’re working with a good amount of influencers and just being able to keep their deliverables straight, being able to keep dates straight if you have multiple people on your team, owning those relationships, being able to keep that kind of in order has been so helpful.

And I know a lot of people use those platforms for sourcing, which is awesome too. I like to say, I like to source the old fashioned way and utilizing social platforms and just going on like a black hole in Instagram for a couple hours. So that’s my preferred method, but some influencer marketing platforms can be super helpful with that as well.

[00:26:09] Jessy: For sure, there’s so many out there too. I know it’s like a big question that we get asked in the community very often where it’s like, what are you guys using? I have a tool that’s 75% of the way there and does most of what I need not matter out there. It’s a difficult question, and there’s so many choices too. 

So I feel like you can feel overwhelming to people like we’ve been doing a couple times a year, this best influencer tech events, and I’m trying to do like more demos of that. My philosophy on that, there’s not a one size fits all. That’s why there are so many companies and so like people will say to me, they’re like, what’s your favorite one? And I’m like, it totally depends on what you need for. 

I dunno, there’s a lot of options. It’s worth looking into price of course, as a giant component. If you’re at a huge company obviously they have a much larger budget than if you’re at a smaller startup. And definitely, of course you need to keep that in mind cause all of this is about creating ROI and measurement, measuring every bit of that adds up. But yeah, like you’re trying true Google Suite for sure, are you a big calendar person? Are you color coding? 

[00:27:22] Megan: Absolutely.

[00:27:25] Jessy: I love it. And are you a time blocking person? Do you know what that is? 

[00:27:36] Megan: Yeah I’m actually not so much, but yeah, I’m more of a reminders person of this is what I’ve gotta tick off, cause it’s so satisfying to just check something off, but when I need to, I’ll block time off. 

[00:27:49] Jessy: No, that’s a really good point. I feel you on that girl. Like just being able to check something off a list or whatever. Talking about tools, I talk about Evernote a lot. 

[00:28:00] Megan: Yeah, I was just thinking of that. 

[00:28:03] Jessy: You too, amazing, like-minded women, cause I also have like way later life. I was 34 years old when someone was like, I think you have ADHD, you should really look into that. And I was like, what? And so I was like, that describes me to a T. So if I didn’t have a notetaking system to be able to keep track of all the things that are bouncing through my brain, I wouldn’t be able to get anything done. And then to your point, just check it off is so satisfying. 

[00:28:33] Megan: Absolutely. 

[00:28:33] Jessy: So I love that you mentioned that. I’d also love to hear, I just think it would be cool to discuss like what a successful campaign looks like to you?

[00:28:47] Megan: I always say, and I’m sure others have said this too, I’m sure I picked it up from somewhere, but I feel like influencer marketing is this mix of art and science where there’s a quality and quantity element to it.

So you can have a really great piece of content that is super beautiful but it could perform really dismally or you could have something that is posted by this mega influencer celebrity that gets a million views, but it’s not really telling your brand story or if it’s not really in line with what you wanted.

I think the ideal is to get both checked off. There’s a number of things that I would take into consideration to consider something successful. I think number one is that content quality and that storytelling. The reason we’re working with creators is to get our brand message out or, in the cases that I’ve worked with influencers, it’s usually tied back to marketing efforts.

That content quality is, top of the list and the storytelling and being able to get a message across is really impactful. I also look at, that ROI, just being able to prove the value of influencers. So looking at reach, impressions, engagements, making sure that we’re reaching the right audience.

So checking out our influencers, audience demographics usually from the start, but it feels really good to have an impact and be able to say, this reached this many people or this many people engaged with that and they’re in our target, location or age group or what have you. 

And then I think, something that other teams might leave out, but I think is really important is just the influencers satisfaction with working with us. I think it’s important to consider something successful if you pulled off this great relationship, especially when you’re working in a long term relationship with a lot of deliverables and being able to keep that kind of afloat and on good terms, is really fun and really satisfying and you can get some great connections and even friends out of it. 

So I think knowing that an ambassador that we worked with is really happy with their participation and with working with us is really nice to hear. And then the final thing I would say is, this is a plus, but our ability to help other teams across an organization.

So in-house, this is one of my favorite things is to extend the life cycle of any relationship with an influencer beyond just, a piece of content on their social channel. It’s, using that influencer and having them speak at an event if they’re interested or taking a piece of content that an influencer created and getting the rights to post it on our own channels or as a paid ad or in an email campaign. 

And just being able to take something static and be able to like I said, extend that life cycle. So being able to help other teams across, whatever brand or organization I’m working with is also really satisfying and feels like we achieved something beyond what we had even set out to do.

[00:31:35] Jessy: I love that, like I so many things that you said, I appreciate you bringing up. People don’t talk like, it feels as if when things are falling short, when opportunities are missed. It’s because they’re not able to extend the life of the content they work so hard to create, they’re not maximizing the relationships with the influencers that they took so long to find. 

And then they’re, they have the ability at their fingertips in some instances to like, to glean these really important insights on other parts of the machine. And I hear a lot that like, oh, yeah, of course we found that out, but, we don’t really have a relationship with that team over there or that team on that side, or I don’t know.

We just don’t really have a system in place to be able to facilitate those really important conversations. I just hope that people like prioritize that more because all I think of is like a dozen missed opportunities and I think that influencers who do listen to this conversation will appreciate when you said, I’d love to hear how the influencer felt at the end.

Like they feel that it was successful because if they did that, there’s definitely success in that. So I appreciate that you’re looking at that perspective as well. I’d love to end this conversation today and I’m so appreciative that you came on. You’ve shared so many cool things with our community.

So who would you say would thrive at working at an agency and who would you say is best to work in-house at a brand? 

[00:33:19] Megan: Yeah, that’s a great question. Of course it all comes down to personal preference and maybe even working style, but I’m happy to have had the opportunity to do both. In my agency experience I got, a ton of great experience, working across different brands with different budgets and goals and even verticals.

Working with some people or some brands in the tech or the finance space and others in the beauty and fashion space. So it’s a great way to test everything out and it’s something I. Would tend to recommend earlier in your career if you can do it. Of course that unbiased, that’s what I ended up doing.

So I can’t speak to a different experience, but I think an agency role is great if you like working with multiple brands, keeping things interesting if you’re a people person and really working with clients and meeting new people and networking. Yeah, and it’s a also just a great way to get a lot of experience and figure out what you like.

Personally, I loved taking my experience in-house because I was able to find a brand that I was really interested in investing in and, invest that experience in one space or one brand. And I loved what I mentioned earlier about being able to learn from teams across other departments, even if it had nothing to do with influencer marketing.

It’s so fun, at Squarespace being able to peek into our product marketing team or our social strategy, just all these different areas that I previously just have no knowledge of. It’s really fun to communicate with those teams and see what they’re up to. Also with the brand, being in-house at a brand, you get more of a controller, more of an opportunity to shape strategy, which, I personally love, I consider myself more of a strategist than just a marketing manager. That’s really fun and just being able to have a little bit of hand in, in controlling what kind of influencer programs you’re working on. 

[00:35:05] Jessy: Great insights. I appreciate that. I love that you’ve had that perspective agency people would die to work in house. I hear that all of the time.

The class is always greener, so I appreciate that you’ve had all this perspective and can just provide like a straight answer on things that you’ve experienced and things that you’ve observed. I’m so grateful to have you on the show today and to be able to have this conversation with you.

It’s like you’ve been a member of the community for so long. You’ve been at like really great companies, so like they’re lucky to have you. We’re lucky to have you, and for people in our community who wanna reach out and connect and say hello what’s the best way for them to reach out?

[00:35:52] Megan: Yeah, you can always find me on LinkedIn at Megan Shuffleton and on Instagram and Twitter at M Shuffleton, and always happy to chat with anybody about whether you’re getting started in the industry or thinking about making a move or just wanna chat. So definitely reach out. 

[00:36:08] Jessy: What’s your platform of preference?

[00:36:10] Megan: Honestly, any of them, I’m on all of them every day. 

[00:36:13] Jessy: Really reference like as a consumer, just for fun. 

[00:36:17] Megan: As a consumer, probably TikTok at the moment. I could spend hours on TikTok. It’s just fun and it really just takes you out of your head for a little while. 

[00:36:26] Jessy: Same girl. Send her funny TikTok videos.

[00:36:30] Megan: Oh yes. I will always accept those. 

[00:36:32] Jessy: Amazing. You are so wonderful to come on the show today, super grateful for you. And to everyone tuning in, we will see you next week. Bye, everyone.

[00:36:40] Megan: Thank you so much.