“It’s me, hi!”

I’m so happy you’re here! I thought it was about time I gave you a look into my life - how I started in social media, my Instagram, what I’ve learnt along the way. Disclaimer: I’m a bit of a talker so grab a cuppa and we’ll have a good old chat.

Whenever you see your name sake road, it’s basically the law to grab a photo, right?

It’s nice to be back

I’m going to take us RIGHT back to 2010, where I started my first blog. It was the time when Tumblr was just starting to find its feet and I definitely wanted to be Andy Sachs when I grew up (minus Miranda Priestley, she would crush my soul). Day to day I worked at Topshop (RIP) and blogged, oh the glory days haha.

Fast forward a few years and I’d started another blog, which in fact helped me start my career in social media. 

And this is where my social media story began - back in 2012, with my first full-time job. Now I’m starting my next blog, talking to you and I’m so happy you’re here. 

So, why now?

I thought I’d share my story with you as a way to cut the ribbon and open this thing, because if you’ve been following me for a while you probably know I work in social media, I’m pretty smiley and I live in the UK. That’s probably as far as it goes. 

Let’s change that.

I was, and still am, quite nervous about sharing more of myself on social media. I’m a notoriously private person but for some reason, writing it down feels safe.

So, let’s go back a few years!

Sixth Form to journalism to social media?

After leaving sixth form, skipping university and applying for work experience within all the big publications (I was convinced I wanted to be a journalist) I spent six months jumping around huge magazines and newspapers in London from GQ to The Independent.

My last placement was at Harpers Bazaar, on the web team. That placement was officially my turning point - I saw social media for what it could be (this is pre-Instagram!) and I knew it had the potential to be a huge industry one day.

Not long after, I got my first job in social media, working in travel and managing a handful of social accounts.

I can’t even begin to tell you how GREAT that job was. The whole office got along like a house on fire. We all loved travel and somebody was always away, inspiring the next person to do the same.

In 2015 I then decided to travel around the world on my own, on a sabbatical. My anxiety wasn’t particularly good at the time and I wanted a circuit breaker (which seems wild, looking back at it now). I travelled across Thailand, Singapore, Fiji and New Zealand on my own and then met my best friends in LA where we skimmed up and down the Californian coast together. 

I stayed at this place when I was in Thailand and meeting this guy was one of the best things that’s happened to me, ever. (And yeah, I look about five years old)

Then, I got a new job

A few months after I returned I found my next opportunity and started a new role at Canon. Again, looking back, little old me turned up to a huge office, 300+ people, telling highly experienced marketing managers how I was going to grow their social media accounts and build an online community for their legacy brand.

They must’ve thought that was fking wild - I was in my early 20s, the senior positions were all male dominated (the CMO at the time GRILLED me) but I just did, not, care.

Canon UK’s Instagram community grew from 10,000 to 100,000 quickly and when I left over four years later, 400,000 people were a part of our hub which I was so proud of.

In my four and half years I covered a lot of ground and I feel so lucky that I got to be a part of it. A big part of my role was getting to know Instagrammers in UK and Ireland and our Instameets were huge. We opened up a closed tube station in London (there’s one hidden away on the end of The Strand - we went THERE and it was so cool!), hired the caves underneath Somerset House and put on a gig (the more secret our venues - the better), turned a big mansion into a Christmas wonderland and the photos the Instagrammers took - and the hashtag reach, was always insane. The photo you can see here, it was from the biggest event I’d hosted - 150+ people came to see us in Knightsbridge and not going to lie, the “pink event” (as people lovingly called it) was spoken about a long time afterwards.

I also held social media coaching sessions at the Wimbledon Open for sports photographers. I travelled down to the Royal Navy headquarters to hang out with photographers for their centenary (3am, whiskey bar, sailors - it was a wild night haha). I travelled to trade shows in and around Europe, went on a photography trip to Iceland where we saw the Northern Lights (!) - how lucky was I?!

I’m going to leave the story here because, well, we’ve come up to the Influence Tomorrow bit and that’s a story for another time!