Wondering who co-ordinates the Wakelet Community? We caught up with one quarter of Wakelet’s engagement team, James Davis, to find out
1. How did you become part of the engagement team at Wakelet?
‘I’ve always been interested in social media so, after college, I set up a business promoting sports on Twitter alongside my best friend Callum. Our accounts grew quickly and we gained almost 1M followers! Alongside this business, I started a social media apprenticeship. This covered a wide range of topics and gave me a really good grounding in social media marketing. We learned about everything from paid advertising, influencer marketing and analytics to brand and tone of voice. Through my apprenticeship, I met Jamil, Wakelet’s founder, at an event. He offered me the chance to broaden my marketing skill set and join the team at Wakelet!’
2. What are essential skills for an engagement team member to have?
‘You need a broad range of skills to be effective when it comes to community engagement. It’s important to be a people person; you need to be a strong communicator, friendly, caring and approachable. But it’s equally important to be analytical. You need to be extremely organized, strict with your time management, versatile and – as with anyone working at a start-up – you need to be a fast learner.’
3. How can having a community support a start-up?
‘In my opinion, every start-up needs a community. It gives your users a voice – they’re the people that use the platform every single day so it’s really important that we get feedback from them. It makes a real difference when it comes to improving the user experience, adding new features, and progressing the platform. After all, if you don’t know why people are using your platform, you’ll never grow.’
4. What’s been your most memorable moment as part of Wakelet’s engagement team?
‘Can I choose two? As a big sports fan, being able to meet and then work with some of the world’s most recognizable sports teams has been incredible. I’ve been lucky enough to work with the FA, Chelsea, Everton, Arsenal, FC Barcelona, Leicester Tigers and Scottish Rugby with Wakelet. In 2018, I was also lucky to be able to spend three weeks in the US. We traveled from Boston to Miami going into schools and meeting our users face-to-face, which was amazing!’
5. What challenges have you faced?
‘I’d say the most challenging part of my job is ensuring that I organize my time wisely! From working on projects to speaking with our community, it’s important that I keep a tight schedule and make sure everything gets done on time. It’s challenges like this however that make my work so much more rewarding!’
6. What does your day-to-day role entail?
‘Most of my day is spent speaking with users. I help them with the platform, work with them to create presentations or other resources, and send out swag. I also work on the product; I work closely with the development team, passing on user feedback and helping to develop new features, as well as providing technical customer support.’
7. What advice would you give to someone looking to work in community engagement?
‘If you’re not passionate about what you do, the community will be able to tell. You have to genuinely care about the people using your platform. I’m always on call, whenever they need me, and it’s important to take the time to develop personal relationships, even if you might never meet in person. The way to stand out from the crowd is to really care.’
8. How do you use Wakelet?
‘At work, I use Wakelet to save and organize cool ideas for the community and our swag that I can then share with the rest of the team. In my own time, I mainly use Wakelet to plan my trips, saving links to hotels, places to go, restaurants and bars. I also use it to create shopping lists; I might create a collection of trainers I like, for example, and then send it to my friends and family to get their opinions before I buy a pair.’
Follow James on Wakelet wakelet.com/@jamesdavis and join the Wakelet Community here