Account Director, Influencer Strategy

Account Director, Influencer Strategy 

Responsibilities: 

• Build social influencer strategies cross-functionally to align strategic efforts and priorities, and able to develop strategic outputs with little to no oversight. Collaborate closely with strategy, creative, paid and larger integrated agency teams to deliver program initiatives. 
• Maintains strong connections with talent and management agencies to ensure quality relationships, reliability and quick turn asks.
• Spearhead high profile activations and campaigns for some of our top lifestyle, consumer health, and CPG clients. 
• Develop a deep understanding of our clients’ businesses and target audiences, and working in close collaboration with our Creative, Analytics and Client Experience teams, lead the creation and execution of integrated multi-platform campaigns that drive meaningful results 
• Provide expert counsel to clients and colleagues on social/digital/influencer best practices
• Serve as trusted voice on pop-culture, social trends and other cultural nuances for clients 
• Lead end-to-end influencer procurement process from influencer recommendations to negotiations to servicing the partnerships.
• Play a lead role in the agency’s Influencer center of excellence, which develops and manages key relationships with talent agencies and content creators, and institutionalizes a set of best-in-class tools and processes for identification, contract negotiation, content planning, measurement and ROI analysis
• Collaborate effectively with inter-agency teams to develop holistic plans and fully integrated strategies for our clients
• Lead a high-performing team; mentor and develop junior team members 

Qualifications: 

• 8+ years of experience, preferably within an agency environment
• Strong understanding of the overall media and social landscape, with an emphasis on digital  experience
• Excellent communication and negotiation skills, with ability to develop relationships with influencers, creators, agencies, and other partners. 
• Passion for tracking and understanding new trends in culture 
• Deep expertise in managing influencer programs
• Strong knowledge of social platforms, including paid amplification and campaign optimization
• Strong understanding of marketing funnel analytics & KPIs
• Familiarity with a broad set of social, media and influencer analytics tools
• Detail-oriented, multi-tasker with excellent time-management skills
• Strong written, verbal communication, negotiation and presentation skills
• Experience leading a team is an asset 

Is this you? 

Be a driver of culture: Must have true passion and understanding of pop culture and are part of the community (be it music, gaming, fashion, food, internet culture, etc) This job is the intersection of creative, strategy, marketing, technology, content creation and production; your energy must be driven by your lifestyle. You must influence creative ideations: from the ideas presented, to the influencers selected, to the content created, all the way down to the language used in post copy. 

Have high cultural competencies: Understand the role and importance of diversity, equity & inclusion (DE&I) You must be culturally vigilant with the ability to understand, communicate with and effectively interact with people across cultures.  

Have “Gravitas” in the influencer space and skin-in-the-game:  Deep understanding of the influencer landscape is required. Proven ability to build, speak and grow relationships with change agents and cultural makers (celebrities, influencers, artists, thought leaders) directly or via their agents. You must be open to a public-facing role; willingness to speak publicly about influencer trends when opportunities present itself to the WS Influencer Team. 

Know how to identify and manage diverse vendors and partners: in an industry where technologies (saas platforms, AI, managed services, etc) are popping on the daily, at high volume, no less, you must have experience working with RFPs and meeting with leading tech companies to understand their services and identify their uniqueness (and keep up with their ongoing changes in our WS influencer database) 

Be ready to lead at any moment: working with your leads, you will learn to “step up to the plate” and lead effectively in the client’s and agency’s best interests while also helping to cultivate, mentor and coach mid to junior staff members on the influencer team. 

Hustle: identify influencer opportunities (organic or new) to ensure influencer marketing continues to be a strong marketing discipl