Ever wondered what it’s like working at Wakelet? We caught up with Callum Nightingale to find out more about his role in the engagement team
1. How did you become part of the Wakelet engagement team?
‘After college, my best friend James and I set up a business promoting sports on Twitter. Our accounts took off quickly and we reached almost 1M followers! Alongside this, I started working at an accountancy firm. While I’ve always been good with numbers, I quickly found that the corporate world wasn’t a great match for my personality so, after a year, I was open to finding something new. I met Jamil, Wakelet’s founder, at an event and he invited me to join the team. It was a great opportunity to combine the analytical skills I’d gained in accountancy and my social media experience at an exciting new company.’
2. What are essential skills for someone working in user engagement to have?
‘My role is all about building relationships with our users and so it’s important to have strong interpersonal skills, a good memory, and to genuinely care about the platform and its users. It’s also essential to be able to adapt your communication style so that you can connect with people with different personalities, based in different countries around the world. Being creative and full of ideas is important too, but you also need to be happy putting in the hard work and dedication that helps make those ideas become reality.’
3. How does user engagement support start-ups?
‘Without our users, there’d be no Wakelet. People are at the heart of everything we do and the engagement team was created to support them. The feedback we get through our relationships with users also helps us shape and improve the platform – we wouldn’t be where we are now without their input. Our humanness really resonates with our users and it’s really important that they have someone – a real person – to speak to and share ideas with.’
4. What’s been your most memorable moment at Wakelet?
‘For me, it was attending the ISTE 2019 conference in Philadelphia. I can’t explain how much it meant to all of us to be able to see the result of all of our hard work in person. Meetings users – our virtual friends – in real life, and understanding the difference Wakelet has made to them and their students was incredible.
‘The conference highlight was attending a Wakelet session run by four of our Ambassadors – Kathi, Brad, Kristina and Amy – and seeing how they talk about the platform. When I first started working at Wakelet, I could never have imagined being over 3000 miles away from Manchester, in a packed room, filled with educators excited to learn about Wakelet from four people just as passionate about the platform as I am!’
5. What challenges have you faced?
‘Day-to-day, my biggest challenge is time zones. It’s awesome that we have users all around the world but that does make keeping up with them an almost 24-hour job! I’ve also had to get used to stepping out of my comfort zone. My role, and Wakelet itself, has changed a lot since I first started, so I’ve had to learn new skills and push myself to try a lot of new things along the way.’
6. What does your day-to-day role entail?
‘Every day is different! Most of my time is spent making connections with people around the world and supporting the educators that use Wakelet. I’ll introduce new users to the platform and talk to existing users about new features or content ideas.
‘Alongside my one-on-one conversations with users, I also take part in webinars and work closely with our Ambassadors and Community members. Recently, I’ve been undertaking more project management, taking feature ideas from our users and working with the development and marketing teams to progress those new features and then release them.’
7. What advice would you give to someone looking for a role like yours?
‘I think the best piece of advice I could give would be to have an open mind. You never know where a role like this could take you. Don’t shut down ideas or ignore opportunities to learn and gather new skills, especially if they take you outside of your comfort zone. And never be afraid to ask questions!’
8. How do you use Wakelet?
‘I use Wakelet in and outside of work. It’s been really useful for compiling market research, storing contacts and potential future opportunities, and housing resources that I share with our users. When I’m not at work, I use Wakelet to bookmark things I want to read later and use it to curate lists of new clothes or furniture I’d like to buy or trips that I’d like to take.’
Follow Callum on Wakelet https://wakelet.com/@Cal and on Twitter @CNight97