Live from NYC

08/15/23 • 52 min

Today we’re speaking with Jessy Grossman of WIIM, Taylar Barrington-Booker of Agency Cliquish, Ayomi Samaraweera of Canopy, and Christie Childers of Best Day Ever

After spending 3.5 years working in the Creator Economy, first at TikTok as the Global Head of Internal Communications and then at Jellysmack as Chief of Staff to the President, Ayomi is now a full-time startup founder building Canopy – an anonymous-but-verified platform for creators to crowdsource information and spill the tea in a safe space. As a TikTok Creator herself she has experienced the lack of transparency in the Creator Economy and is on a mission to democratize access to information and create a level playing field for Creators. She has been featured 5x in Business Insider as both a Founder and Creator.

Christie Childers is an Influencer Marketing and Brand Partnerships consultant based in New York City (and sometimes beyond) under her company entity, Best Day Ever. She plays all sides of the space managing a roster of 12 influencers, strategizing campaign activations for brands, as well as building her own fitness studio capitalizing on influencer marketing to drive foot traffic and new clientele.

As an early adopter of the creator-focused vertical, Christie’s expertise has evolved specifically to focus on creative directorial strategies, negotiating and upselling content usage packages and licensing deals, and using campaign performance data to draw conclusions about audience behaviors. This has extended her many opportunities to work with world-leading companies offering industry education, specifically rooted in trend-focused strategies where brands are often missing the mark in activating influencers and creators.

She is a global agencies alumni, an in-progress debut author, and overall a multi-hyphenate pursuant of creative endeavors that make people feel good. Her work ethic is honest, tenacious, and detail-oriented, and her goal is to make sure clients always have the best day ever!

Taylar is the Founder and Head of Talent and Partnerships at Agency Cliquish, a talent development and management agency dedicated to world-class representation for Black digital talent founded in Chicago, IL.

Agency Cliquish’s roster of compelling personal brands boasts a daily reach of 7.5 million across digital platforms. Under Barrington-Booker’s leadership, the agency has penned contracts for influencer marketing partnerships with brands like LVMH, Givenchy, YSL, Amazon, ULTA, Lincoln, Nordstrom, Nike, L’Oreal, Fenty, Neutrogena, Netflix, and hundreds more.

The strategically curated talent being managed by Agency Cliquish’s team of diversely-skilled Black women can be found across global streaming platforms like Hulu, Netflix, and TEDx, and featured in national outlets including CNN, Buzzfeed, PopSugar, 21Nintey, ESSENCE, and more!

Taylar is also a fierce advocate of diversity and inclusion in influencer marketing, a co-author for the published diversity charge #CreatorsforEquality, and a member of the diversity committee for Women In Influencer Marketing.

Timestamps:

[06:16] Biggest hurdle building in the creator economy.

[08:42] Things you wish you knew from the beginning

[12:48] Changing/Solving a problem in the creator economy.

[21:39] Impact of person branding on business.

[25:32] White space primed in the creator economy.

[29:40] Smaller brands have a place at the table with influencers.

[31:35] Future of influencer marketing.

[33:37] Starting Business Ideas.

[36:43] Influencer marketing getting to a performance-driven channel.

[38:47] Structuring day.

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