We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katie Philo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Katie, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

There are so many projects that have been meaningful in my career, so I am going to cheat and tell you about two. The first is leading the social campaign for the BBC One Christmas film in 2017 named “The Supporting Act”. Christmas Adverts and films in the UK are a big deal. Every year, brands pull out all the stops to make the ad that everyone is talking about. BBC One blew everyone out the water in 2017 with a stop motion film about a little girl getting closer to her dad through the medium of dance.

In all the top-secret meetings before launch, we knew it was special. But we could never have predicted the response. I was responsible for the Social Media campaign around the release and secured nearly every single BBC account to post the video at the same time. It took the Internet by storm and was one of BBC One’s most successful videos of all time, racking up an incredible 46 million views on Facebook. It was so wonderful working with a team on such a beautiful piece, that even had people wiping away a tear. It was a true demonstration of the magic that happens when multi-disciplinary teams come together and I’m really proud of that.

The second, was working on a social campaign and package at Pitchfork during the pandemic named “Live Music Forever”. As we all socially distanced, it was hard to imagine a world in which we’d be sweating and singing in a crowd again. The story spotlighted 36 of America’s best independent music venues on how they were surviving the pandemic and what was next. Live music venues suffered as they were unable to play host to musicians touring, so it felt incredibly important to not only help tell the staff stories, but to encourage audiences to support the venues enterprising ways to make money in the absence of concerts. As part of the social campaign. I produced a series of Pitchfork 5 videos with the staff of venues who shared memories of their favorite shows from the venue. While we knew that one day concerts would return, this story gave me a chance to interact with similarly passionate music fans, but also reflect on the significance live music has played in my life.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve been working in digital and social media for 13 years, and have spent my career at some of the biggest media brands in the world including the BBC to Condé Nast. My first proper job marketing a video streaming platform at Reuters in New York made me realize two things. Firstly, I needed to understand video and digital platforms to carve out a career in this fast-changing industry. And secondly, I wanted to live in New York.

I’d dreamed of working for the BBC from a young age, a goal that was cemented when I interviewed Madonna on CBBC Newsround aged 13. When I returned to London from New York, my skills and experience from Reuters landed me the perfect first role as an Online Researcher for BBC iPlayer. I produced websites for some of their biggest shows and worked on the cutting edge of TV streaming. What followed were three of the most enriching and creative years of my career, managing social media and digital production across some of the BBC’s biggest shows and brands. I was motivated by the thrill of collaborating with others to tell compelling stories and connect with audiences.

This is why, after three years in London, I accepted a role to lead social for BritBox in New York, a streaming service created by the BBC and ITV. It was incredibly rewarding bringing British TV to North American audiences and working on incredible projects such as The Britannia Awards and the Royal wedding in 2018. And of course being able to achieve my earlier dream of returning to New York!

In 2020, I joined Condé Nast to lead social media at Pitchfork. Music has always been a cornerstone of my life. Having a job that involved creating content for people who geek out on music as much as I do was truly a dream come true. In 2022, I moved internally to head up social at GQ. I’ve had some of the most surreal experiences of my career to date, such as covering the Oscars and Met Gala. I feel very grateful to be working alongside and learning from a team of such passionate people at the top of their game.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The best part of being creative is connecting with other humans. Humans are hardwired for storytelling, and have been since the beginning of our species. When creating something from your imagination, you are usually imbuing your perspective into the piece of work. This, in turn, can help transform someone else’s perspective on their world. I love the idea of helping someone seek meaning, gain more self-knowledge, develop empathy, or even just experiencing a brief moment of levity.

It’s not lost on me how much of a privilege it is to be able to regularly encounter new stories every day through work, but to also play a part in telling them and amplifying them to new audiences. Whether it’s an incredible human interest story or a fun social video, I get a lot of satisfaction figuring out how to shape the story on social media and then very tangibly being able to see an audience’s reaction through the engagement.

Having cut my creative teeth at big global media organizations like the BBC and Conde Nast, I am very lucky that my creative process has been varied and truly cross-platform. I have worked in TV, radio, online, video print and social media. It may be cliched to say, but the creative process is often just as rewarding as the result.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I’ve worked in social media for over a decade and while there isn’t a total science to it and I could go for hours, here are three pieces of advice to start:

First and foremost, be yourself. It’s tempting to look at other people and emulate their voice or content. But ultimately, the reason they were probably successful in the first place is because they were authentically expressing something that is true to who they are and their unique perspective on the world. You should think deeply about the things you care about, what makes you unique and how you might be able to valuably contribute. Just because there are thousands of other instagram accounts focussed on your area of interest, doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for your perspective in the mix. It’s much more about how you tell your story, as opposed to the story you tell.

Secondly, you should think about social media as being social, and the community you are engaging with and creating. One hit wonder viral posts are all well and good, but slow and steady always wins the race when it comes to real growth. If you’re an influencer and looking to work with a brand, they’ll usually inquire about your engagement rates rather than simple vanity metrics such as follower count. You should aim to be consistent in your posting cadence, contribute and start conversations. Instead of just firing out content without intent, pay attention to what they are saying, reply to people and originate content that truly matters to you – because chances are, it will resonate with your audience too.

Thirdly, be creative and experimental. So many people become paralyzed with perfection when posting on social media. Platforms are constantly shifting. One day video will be prioritized, the next it might be photo carousels or text threads. TikTok could be banned and newsletters might become the new video. The point is, with the ground constantly shifting, you should feel empowered to experiment with new formats and ideas. You should be ready to learn new modes of storytelling and new tools. No one is looking for perfection on social media, and above all, you should be having fun with it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.katiephilo.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/katiephilo
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiephilo
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/katiephilo

Image Credits
Own all the rights / courtesy of Katie Philo