It is no secret that the digital landscape has been changing for some time and recent years has seen the rise of the influencer, with brands scrambling to work with popular online personalities to reach out to their audience. Alex Jennings is a man who decided to use his 15 years of experience in PR, communications and marketing into creating his own influencer marketing company.
FamousInfluencer.com was born in 2015 and the team has never looked back, with offices in both London and Los Angeles, the future is bright for the company that boasts partnerships with world-renowned brands such as Forbes, Business Insider and Fortune amongst others.
Jennings, a former director at Microsoft, spoke about how he came to the decision to start his own company, the success both FamousInfluencer.com and its clients have enjoyed and his hopes for the future.
Q: Your CV is a very impressive one and you held fantastic positions at Edelman and Microsoft before that, what encouraged you to launch FamousInfluencer.com?
Alex Jennings: “I have a strong passion for PR and, having worked in various senior-level roles, I wanted to try something a little bit different and felt that the time was right to use my 15-plus years of experience to launch FamousInfluencer.com.
“I have a natural entrepreneurial streak at heart, having helped numerous startups and blockchain companies to raise more than $250m through different campaigns and it was around this time I began to see the value in online influencers.
“Whereas many brands have only just realised the potential of working with influencers and micro-influencers, we have been doing so for over five years now.”
Q: What has been the biggest challenge for FamousInfluencer.com so far?
AJ: “The challenge for any new company is the same, which is to establish yourself. Thankfully, due to the contacts I built up during my time working with companies such as Microsoft, Samsung and Facebook, along with our head of partnerships Mark Jeffries, who was at Buzzfeed, we were able to establish ourselves pretty quickly.”
Q: What are your main responsibilities at FamousInfluencer.com?
AJ: “Where do I start! As we are currently a team of 12 spread across our London and Los Angeles offices, I am obviously very hands-on with the planning and implementation of our campaigns.
“This includes researching, developing and executing PR campaigns, creating a content strategy for materials both in French and English, reporting to our clients, developing relationships with key personalities in the media, monitoring social trends, managing social media campaigns and the brand itself.”
Q: What do the next five years have in store for FamousInfluencer.com?
AJ: “Growth! Already we have worked with over 150 clients and forged close connections with 200 of the world’s top publications and we aren’t ready to stop there.
“We will continue to work with anyone from major influencers, actors and athletes to established and startup businesses and all those who fall in between. At FamousInfluencer.com we are passionate about what we do and doing the best for our clients.”