Morgan

Name: Morgan M-James

Age: 22

Job title: Online content creator

Company & location: Works with brands including Squeaky Bean, Oreo, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Burger King, and is based in Brighton

Education: Went to East Sussex College and studied a range of subjects including photography and music

Why did you decide to go for a foodie career? I started using social media as a platform to share my music. As my audience grew I decided that I wanted to share more of my life with them. I’ve always loved cooking and experimenting with food so I began to film this content and people seemed to enjoy it!

I had worked on a few brand collaborations in the past but I had never worked with a food company before. When Squeaky Bean initially approached me to work with them I was excited at the idea of producing food content professionally for them – and soon after invitations from other major brands followed!

Explain your job to us in a sentence (or two): I work with brands when they are looking to reach a new audience, either generally for brand awareness or specifically for a product campaign. We look at the best way to integrate the brand into my content in a natural way that will bring value to my audience. Once we’ve outlined a concept I will shoot and edit the content and post it on my profile. It’s important to me to work with brands I know and trust.

What does a typical day look like for you? Every day is so different and there is a lot of time pressure when working with brands on social media content. The principle of creating, filming and editing content is consistent but the ideas for the footage are so varied. For example, last week I was shooting an ad for Burger King in my kitchen and right now I’m in the Squeaky House – the world’s first food creator house – creating the best plant-based food I’ve ever tasted.

“It’s important to me to work with brands I know and trust”

Tell us about how you went about applying for your job. I’ve been posting on social media since I was 14 so brands are able to see my whole journey, which means there isn’t an application process to a specific job.

What’s the best part about working with food? Trying new things that I would never normally try. Being in the Squeaky House I’ve eaten so much food that I’ve never tried before, partly because all the influencer housemates have been challenged to go plant-based for 21 days.

And what’s the biggest misconception people have about your work? I feel like content creators and influencers often get a bad name in the mainstream media and are perceived as being lazy. The reality for me is short deadlines and a lot of time pressure to generate videos that deliver. This means long days and nights filming and editing footage.

What advice would you give to other young people looking to get into a job like yours? Create content about something you love, an audience can tell when posts aren’t natural. Have fun with it and keep connecting and collaborating with like-minded creators. Although I don’t have a particular niche, I feel like I have a very recognisable content style – work on finding yours.

What’s your ultimate career dream? I’d love to do what I’m doing now but on a larger scale. I’m really excited to see where this career takes me. I’d love to try new things within the industry, like presenting or even a cheeky season on Bake Off or Strictly!

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