When it comes to the talent working on TikTok, more agencies are eying personal profiles

By Kristina Monllos

Bernie Williams has nearly 15,000 followers on TikTok, where she’s crafted a following by focusing on a specific niche: books via BookTok. Doing so has not only helped Williams grow her own audience and figure out what works to go viral but, this past July, led to a new job at creative agency OKRP.

“Our recruiter went through all of my socials and reached out to me,” said Williams, adding that a friend had recently started at the agency and helped her put together her resume. Williams put her personal social media work on her resume and noted that she had been “featured in articles about being a BookTok influencer,” which can “help legitimize the work — you don’t know how serious people will take it.”

Williams’ presence on TikTok and her innate ability to understand the platform appealed to the agency, according to Betsy Ross, OKRP’s head of client business. “We took a look at who Bernie was on the platform,” said Ross. “We had the content need to take advantage of real-time trends. Who Bernie was became the answer before we knew what the role would become.”

Williams joined OKRP as a trendcaster last summer. (She has since been promoted to senior social strategist.) Since joining, she has used her understanding of social trends to help the agency find ways to get in on current trends for clients, and she uses insights she gained as a creator and producer to edit content in such a way that it will have a better chance to go viral.

As TikTok continues to grow and become a staple for advertisers, some marketers and agency executives are using the platform to seek out talent, or taking a closer look at potential hires’ personal profiles. In doing so, agencies hope to find talent with a better understanding of the platform.

“The ask from clients for TikTok content is increasing,” said Bridget Jewell, Dentsu Creative group creative director, social, adding that the agency’s team focused on TikTok content has tripled in size over the last year. The agency has started to use people’s personal TikToks as a way to source talent and “put candidates in the pipeline,” per Jewell. “It’s easy for us to understand that they can make content that will resonate,” Jewell said.

Other agencies are paying more attention to portfolios that include TikToks that exemplify what potential employees can do for their clients on the platform. Showcasing the ability to make the kind of content that would work well for clients has long been a part of advertising — extending this to TikTok is simply an evolution of this idea to fit the needs of agencies today, according to execs.

“Someone’s ability to gain a social following is really great experience,” said Gabe Gordon, co-founder of social shop Reach Agency, adding that while the shop has hired creators in the past, that wasn’t the only reason they were hired. “It’s unique in the age we work in. Before, people couldn’t make …read more

Source:: Digiday