Q&A with Paige from AnthropologieΝβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ 
Pretty Little Marketer

MEMBERSHIP - EVENTS - TEMPLATES

trending: employee generated content πŸ‘€

Hello lovely email gang! How’s it going?

I’m in your inboxes this morning sharing our next instalment of Industry Insider! Each month, I pick the brain of a fabulous marketer and writing it up for you lovely lot to enjoy, digest and learn from.

This month, I had the joy of chatting with Paige from Anthropologie - all about employee generated content. A rising trend I predicted back in January that I’m absolutely loving - and that the Anthro team absolutely smash.

Enjoy!

πŸ’­ TLDR:

β†’ Employee-generated content [EGC] can be a powerful tool for social media engagement. Anthropologie's success on TikTok shows that EGC can be a great way to create content that resonates with customers.

β†’ EGC fosters a sense of community and relatability with customers. People connect better with real people than with staged marketing content, and EGC can help to create a more authentic and relatable brand image.

β†’ A successful EGC strategy involves encouraging employee participation, understanding the target platform, and having a plan to safeguard employees from potential negativity. It's important to make sure that employees feel comfortable participating in EGC, and to have a system in place to protect them from any negative comments or feedback.

β†’ Building trust and a positive work environment are important aspects of a thriving EGC program. When employees feel good about their workplace, they're more likely to be willing to participate in EGC and to create content that is positive and engaging.

Paige, tell me about your role at Anthropologie. What do you do?


I'm Paige. I'm the Social Media Manager at Anthropologie Europe. I have been here for nearly seven years now, and I was the first ever social media marketer in the business.

My team consists of one direct report, a part-time freelance content creator focusing on TikTok, and a social media marketing and influencers intern.  Influencer marketing used to sit within my team, but due to increased content needs, we now focus on strategy and content creation.

My role involves developing annual strategies, setting KPIs and targets, and overseeing content creation and delivery. I have a creative background in photography and video, which led me to this career. 

My background is actually very creative. I studied photography and print media A-levels. I was one of those girls in school that was always making videos and doing photoshoots with her friends, designing graphics, teaching myself how to code MySpace pages and I would say that progressed me into this side of work. 

We link up closely with our US counterparts. We have global campaigns, and then we have our US lens versus our EU lens. There's always a difference in tone of voice, depending on the market. I also oversee our UAE market, as we have some franchises there. 

And then just, the less fun BAU stuff, like being actively involved in lots of meetings, reporting and feeding back results and learnings to our stakeholders. And then also, of course, like running around the office filming crazy TikToks as well!

You and the team smash your content, but I particularly love your EGC [employee generated content] approach. What made you and the team want to start sharing this type of content?


So we've actually always done EGC at Anthro. We are very limited on creative assets that we have, due to little US and UK product crossover. From when I joined the team, my manager and I have always shot content ourselves to ensure we have the  images and video we need.

We started on Instagram, we’d shoot anonymous style imagery, so our heads would be cropped out or our hair would be across our faces as this would drive the strongest engagement at the time. To this day, you will still see the social team modelling our product on our Instagram. 

From there, it naturally transitioned. I think as the demand for content got higher and higher, and we didn't have the influencer content coming in at the volume that we needed to fill that gap - so we took things into our own hands. 

It started off quite polished, but we’ve grown to learn that people love people. I look at brands like Dove who’ve historically always included real people in their marketing, and how successful they’ve been - and I think on TikTok in particular, people come to see authentic content from strangers going about their daily lives. The power of a storytime or the recommendation from a normal person versus an influencer can have a much higher impact.. So we were like, how can we bring that into our content?

You can also be more reactive. We can see a trend, and quickly adapt and make it work for our brand.. I mean, obviously not every single trend will resonate and it’s important  to not jump on every trend  if it doesn’t align with your core brand values or tone of voice..

Since adopting this approach, we’ve seen more impressions on Tiktok for the first quarter (+5,194% YOY) of 2024 than we did the whole of 2023, just by really leaning into this office driven employee content that people just love to see.

Incredible numbers here. The proof really is in the pudding, hey! Why do you think EGC is on the rise?

It makes the content more personable, and human. We get to see real people! We’re doing more to get our customers involved too, and extending the EGC out to sort of like CGC [customer generated content] because people really relate. This can be in-store giveaways, taking part in mini mic quizzes or styling events to name a few. 

When we did a customer call out, we got such an overwhelming response of people that wanted to get involved. And it is really nice now when we meet our customers in our stores, they’re like β€œI saw you on TikTok!” - they feel like they know us, and it builds trust with our customers.

Inside the company as well, people love getting involved. It creates such a nice sense of community between our teams - and I do think people just having fun translates, and that’s obviously appealing content for people to watch.

Finally, I’d love to learn more about what you think good EGC looks like and how you encourage the team to get involved?

First, you do need to have a safeguarding policy because you are opening people up to criticism that they might not have necessarily signed up for when they join the job - I mean, hate comments are real! A great way to get people onboard is showing them examples of content that you've been in that's performed really well, and highlight the positive comments that you’re getting from viewers and your community. A lot of our staff have mini fan bases now! 

Don’t just rely on your most confident peers. Different people will connect with different employees and personalities. We have a few people in our teams who are always up for anything and love being in front of the camera, but we always ask everyone anyway. The worst they can do is say no. Build confidence and find easy ways for people to get involved. As the social team, make sure you are visible and approachable. We film a lot of group content in front of the whole office and when needed, we encourage group participation by getting everyone in the office to cheer or laugh- making getting involved really lighthearted and fun. 

Know the platform. We met our freelancer at an influencer event for TikTok creators, who later happened to be looking for work experience when she graduated - we had her in, and then ended up contracting her two days a week to do content creation. She’s directly in the platform all the time and has grown her own following. She knows the trends, she knows what’s going on and so we can make our content relevant for the app, and for our brand. 

Be prepared, and be organised. If I know I want to shoot a video of our Anthro staffers trying on our new products, I know I need to get ahead with samples and  booking time in their diaries. I know sometimes that's not possible with Tiktok, but you’ve got to prepare in advance - especially when you’ve got multiple people, teams or even stores involved.

Thank you so much for reading this month’s edition of Industry Insider and thank you so much to Paige for her time! If there’s a brand or individual you’d like to see quizzed in next month’s addition - pop me a note back, and I’ll see what I can do.

I’ll be back in your inboxes on Thursday for your usual round up, and until then - I’ll see ya on socials!

Love always,

Sophie x

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Pretty Little Marketer, London, UK

Pretty Little Marketer

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