What it's like working on celebrities social media channels
Lauren Beeching
If you didn't know, Honest London is one of the trusted social media agencies that manage celebrity social media profiles. Our celebrity clients rely on us for around-the-clock Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Tik Tok posts.
Our job is an important one in London, New York and L.A.
Why? How a celebrity or anyone in the public eye presents themselves online can determine what films, T.V. shows and partnership opportunities they're considered for, who their fanbase is, and how they're written about in the media... No pressure!
Nowadays, you'd struggle to name an A-lister without some social media presence, whether that's on Twitter, Instagram, or Tik Tok.
Working on a celebrities social media platform is a fantastic opportunity down to getting the kind of access that reporters and fans can only dream of experiencing. But, of course, we never take advantage. Try finding out our clients who are based in the U.K., USA and Scandinavia. You'll never figure it out, we keep them 100% confidential.
To do our job well, we combine complete access with constant awareness. For example, our phones are always switched on, ready for when a message comes in at 4 a.m. We even have a unique ringtone for our celebrity clients so that we don't miss them.
On top of this, we also need to know every one of our celebrity clients intimately. Otherwise, the voice we help them develop online won't feel authentic and fans will sniff out inauthenticity immeditely.
Our primary role is figuring out our celebrity clients' comfort level in the social space because everyone is incredibly different. So in order to do this, we have to figure out the client's social media personality, who they want to be, how they want to connect with their audience, and what their goals are for social media.
We'll be honest (no pun). It's damn tricky figuring out someone else's social personality and nowhere near as easy as you'd presume. It's a incredibly time consuming and a deep-dive process:
Regular meetings with clients
Extensive research
Spend time on press tours, film/music video sets and events
The research is to understand better how our clients talk about themselves — from their tone of voice to how they generally answer questions and what issues are really important to them.
Once we feel confident that we've nailed it, we'll begin to increase our client's presence on social media.
We need to consistently communicate with our client's fanbase or whoever follows them because that is how we authentically use social media.
We learnt the value of posting consistently through our 10+ years of experience working with businesses and those considered 'smaller celebrities'.
We tell all of our celebrity clients that they need to be on platforms where their audience is and to worry about being active on every single social media platform. We have many clients who were and are still hesitant about using Tik Tok because they don't feel confident with the editing requirements when we're not physically with them.
A large part of the job is essentially training celebrities become more comfortable on social media. When we are with them on a film set, for example, we'll use Tik Tok, so they can become confident doing it on their own. We teach them how to effectively use newer technologies like Instagram Reels, Guides and Live too.
The images and videos that we insist on sharing aren't always the ones a studio or their team want us to share. But the millions of followers and hundreds of thousands of likes don't lie, and we are confident that we know what kinds of posts get the most engagement following our extensive research and close relationships.
If we post something behind the scenes which is real, organic and natural instead of a posed shot, the numbers are always off the charts. It's our job to help the fans feel like they're being brought into this process and are involved with the celebrities life while keeping the celebrity client happy and comfortable.