Meet Victoria Jenkins: Social Media Marketing Awards 2019 Winner

With the deadline for entries to the 2021 Social Media Marketing Awards less than 6 weeks away, we’re keeping the inspiration flowing with our series of interviews with previous SMMA winners. This week, we’re chatting to Victoria Jenkins, Director at social media agency Mighty Social. Victoria has over nine years’ experience delivering award winning social strategies for leading global brands, such as Arup, Barbie and Fisher-Price, and was recognised for her outstanding work at the 2019 SMMAs where she won Agency Social Media Marketer of the Year.

Hi Victoria! First off, could you tell us a bit about your career journey on the run up to the awards and tell our readers what award you won in 2019?

As a history graduate I’ve always been fascinated by storytelling, and marketing at its essence allows me the opportunity to tell brands’ stories. I attended the Institute of Data & Marketing (IDM) Future Leaders programme just after graduating, where we got to meet a whole range of agencies and work on live briefs. After this I studied marketing courses at the Data and Marketing Association and City University while completing a number of marketing internships.

In 2012 I joined Mighty Social, which had a fantastic fast-track leadership programme that allowed me the opportunity to work with global brands and progress to agency Director. It was an incredible surprise to find that I had been nominated by our team for this award and I feel extremely honoured to win it in such a competitive and creative industry. I’m incredibly lucky to work in an agency where we’ve won a number of awards for innovation, growth and ROI, but personally winning the Social Media Marketing Award was really special.

Obviously no one could have predicted that after the awards we’d be faced with a year like 2020. What do you think the biggest challenge has been for you professionally in the last year?

In digital marketing we've been lucky enough to be able to work from home for the last year, but it was definitely a big cultural challenge for the first few weeks as we’d never worked remotely as a team before.

As an agency team we’re all highly social, with lots of group brainstorms and face time with clients. I helped transition our workplace office to a digital one by setting up monthly team challenges (everything from the biggest steps count, to sunflower growing), virtual events (from escape rooms, to group pancake making) and a ‘surprise & delight’ initiative to award team members going above and beyond. We’ve definitely kept our culture alive virtually, but I’m very excited for a date in the future when we can meet up face to face!

As an agency marketer, you must have seen lots of brands have to pivot during the last year and embrace digital. Are there any examples that spring to mind of brands that have done this particularly well?

I’m so proud of how reactive all the brands I work with have been during an extremely challenging year. I’ve definitely pivoted strategy more than ever before in response to the rapidly changing circumstances. Within the first 12 hours of the lockdown being announced I had discussions with all of my clients about how their TOV, imagery and sales strategy may be impacted and put clear guidelines in place. I've observed the biggest ROI for some of my retail brands, who increased their sales by over 150% and now use social as their core lead generation platform.

So what moment in your career would you say you are most proud of to date?

Winning the Agency Social Media Marketer of the Year Award was definitely a career highlight!

I’ve also been really proud to have been involved in our agency's Diversity and Inclusion initiatives, working on campaigns which celebrate diversity and female empowerment for brands, such as Barbie.  

And finally, with nominations for the 2021 Social Media Marketing Awards opening soon, do you have any top tips for people thinking of entering this year?

I’d highly encourage anyone to enter the Social Media Marketing Awards, or nominate their team members. It’s such an incredible opportunity for everyone to be recognised for all of their hard work - whether you walk away with an award or not. I’ve already nominated two of my extremely talented colleagues for this year’s awards - fingers crossed!

Some fantastic insights shared by Victoria there! If you fancy a shot at being recognised alongside the most outstanding talent in the social media marketing industry, enter yourself, your team, a piece of content or a campaign for an award now!

You can find out more about our awards and the categories available to enter by clicking ‘Find out more’.

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