Bumble – COOPER GENERAL NEWS

Companies like TikTok and Bumble are hiring students to work as brand ambassadors on campus. These jobs pay off better than typical college jobs like food service and retail – and provide valuable work experience.

Students say they learned about marketing, content creation, and management while working as brand ambassadors – and expanded their network by connecting with other campus representatives across the country. And in a highly competitive internship and job market, the experience of being a brand ambassador is a way to stand out, the students said.

“My life changed with the TikTok Ambassador Program,” said Bita Motiie, a senior at the University of North Texas who studied marketing.

Bita Motiie, a senior at the University of North Texas, says she has opened many job opportunities as a brand ambassador for TikTok.

Photo: Michael Chavira

Motiie has been working as a campus rep for the social media platform since fall 2019 and said this has helped her recognize her interest in branding and building online communities – and advance her career.

“I had so many new job opportunities,” said Motiie. “Even at the place where I currently work, they hired me specifically because I had experience as a TikTok brand ambassador.”

Campus ambassador programs also benefit brands. A study by Jonah Berger, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and research firm Keller Fay Group found that 82% of consumers are likely to follow a recommendation from a micro-influencer (a person with greater reach) than the average person – although not a celebrity – in a very specific category or demographic such as college students).

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“These programs are a win-win as they provide brands with valuable insight while students gain marketing experience as they near graduation,” said Julie Jatlow, partner at Fuse, an agency that runs college ambassador programs for TikTok , Amazon and other brands.

Depending on the company, campus ambassador duties typically include posting content on social media, handing out goods or samples, hosting branded events, and reaching out to student organizations.

“Finding creative and passionate students whose traits are specifically tailored to the brand’s DNA is of the utmost importance,” said Jatlow. “We are always on the lookout for proactive students with drive and enthusiasm.”

Student representatives are usually compensated by an hourly rate or a monthly grant and can work on their own schedule. In fact, campus ambassador wages are between $ 15 and $ 25 an hour, according to job postings on the employment website. This is well above the hourly rate for jobs common among college students, like food and beverage service, which pays around $ 11 an hour, and retail sales, which are around $ 13 per hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Hour pays.

“It’s a lot more flexible than a normal job as a working student,” said Cedoni Francis, a 2020 graduate of Vanderbilt University who worked at the school for brands like TikTok, dating app Bumble and beer company Anheuser-Busch.

Cedoni Francis, a 2020 graduate of Vanderbilt University, worked as a student brand ambassador for TikTok, Bumble and Anheuser-Busch. She now works in marketing at Google.

Photo: Warner Tidwell

Francis, who is now an associate product marketing manager at Google, said her experience with campus ambassador programs helped her develop skills like time management and stakeholder engagement.

In particular, her experience with TikTok gave her a crash course on viral marketing, expertise that she uses in her current job.

“It’s a good primer,” said Francis. “There are certain things that other people have to teach how to do that. I don’t have to learn how to do it.”

Peter Corrigan, assistant director of employer and alumni connections for Student Engagement and Career Development at the University of Arizona, said working as brand ambassadors on campus helps students build key skills.

“Students improve their communication skills when they speak to a large number of people who are trying to create brand awareness on campus,” Corrigan said. “It takes students out of their comfort zone and gives them sales experience with companies they might want to work for.”

Candice Nguyen, a third year public administration student at Drexel University, represents brands such as Bumble, Victoria’s Secret Pink and Red Bull on her campus.

Candice Nguyen, a student at Drexel University, represents brands such as Bumble, Victoria’s Secret Pink and Red Bull on her campus.

Source: Candice Nguyen

Like Francis, Nguyen said her work as a campus ambassador resulted in work experience. She recently completed a certification in project management and is a full-time intern in a project management role.

“I realized that a lot of my job was project management, like running events and being able to oversee and coordinate with teams,” said Nguyen of her experience as a brand ambassador.

Montserrat Lewin Mejia, a senior at Michigan State University, began campus ambassador programs in her second semester of her junior year as a representative of retail brand Rent the Runway before the Covid-19 pandemic closed the program. She is now a brand ambassador for Bumble and the fashion start-up Qatch.

Montserrat Lewin Mejia, an engineering student at Michigan State University, has worked as a brand ambassador for Rent the Runway, Bumble and the fashion start-up Qatch. Your new career goal is to become a full-time influencer.

Photo: Mindy Melinda Carmack

As an engineering student, Mejia said that the campus brand ambassador programs introduced her to the world of influencer marketing and helped her achieve new career goals.

“I’ve had a really big goal since I started, potentially becoming a full-time influencer,” Mejia said.

TikTok campus rep, Tatum Riley, Junior at Duke University, sees college ambassador programs help build brand awareness. Riley and her brand colleagues on campus attempted to “personalize” advertising through catering events and targeted contact with Duke students.

Tatum Riley, Junior at Duke University, represents TikTok on their campus.

Photo: Griffin Riley

Disclosure: NBCUniversal and Comcast Ventures are investors in Acorns.

Whitney Wolfe Herd speaks on stage during the Fortune Most Powerful Women Next Gen conference at Monarch Beach Resort on November 13, 2017 in Dana Point, California.

Joe Scarnici | Getty Images Entertainment

When 31-year-old Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd goes public this week, she will be known not only for her youth, but also as one of the few founders to have her company go public.

It’s a fitting achievement for the founder of a dating app that aims to put women in the driver’s seat. But it also hammers home the still unsuitable playing field for entrepreneurs.

Bumble, whose board of directors is 73% women, is slated to begin trading on the Nasdaq a few days before Valentine’s Day on Thursday. The company will sell its shares at $ 43 per share and raise $ 2.2 billion from investors. The offering initially valued the company at more than $ 7 billion.

The market reaction will serve as the litmus test of investing in women-owned businesses.

Today, women make up 7.4% of Fortune 500 CEOs – an all-time high, but still an astonishingly low number. Even fewer women founders of public limited companies. Nasdaq estimates that only 20 of the US public companies active today were led by their founder through the IPO.

Women’s funding falls as global deals rise

The problem is not a lack of women entrepreneurs, but a lack of support where it matters: funding.

In a 2018 study, the Boston Consulting Group found “a significant gender gap in new business financing.” According to the study, investments in businesses founded or co-founded by women averaged $ 935,000, less than half the average $ 2.1 million men receive.

Even so, startups founded by women and co-founded made 78 cents for every dollar invested, while startups founded by men made only 31 cents.

Covid-19 could be the greatest threat to female founders.

Matt Krentz

Managing Director and Senior Partner of the Boston Consulting Group

The pandemic has only widened this gap.

In 2020, global risk finance increased 13% year over year, while investments in women decreased 27%. In the meantime, the proportion of women founders who were only assigned to female founders has fallen from 2.8% to 2.3%, according to Crunchbase data. This is due to the fact that women, often primary caregivers, are said to be more affected by the pandemic overall.

“The convergence of crises – demands for racial justice, #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Covid-19 and an economic downturn – makes this a crucial moment for business integration, justice and diversity,” said Matt Krentz, Managing Director and Senior Partner at BCG and The study co-authored, said CNBC. “Of all these problems, Covid-19 could be the greatest threat to female founders.”

Redirect investments where they are needed

The economic benefits of investing in women are well documented. By some estimates, equal business participation by men and women could add $ 5 trillion to the global economy.

And companies and institutions seem to be listening now. Many have made bold commitments to better support gender equality and female founders.

What female founders need is simple and equal access to financial investments.

Tanya Rolfe

managing partner, Her Capital

“Awareness of the funding gap and the impact of different leadership teams is better understood, and investors have begun to ask directly about the diversity of founders and leadership teams,” said Krentz.

Too often, however, these investments are poorly channeled, according to Tanya Rolfe, managing partner at Her Capital, a women-run venture capital company that focuses on female founders in Southeast Asia.

“Women seem to be at the center of a lot of additional mentoring, which only suggests that women are missing something,” said Rolfe. “What female founders need is simple and equal access to financial investments.”

Tanya Rolfe, managing partner of Singapore-based venture capital firm Her Capital.

Your capital

To achieve this, more diversity is needed at the fund manager level, Rolfe said.

According to All Raise, a nonprofit focused on accelerating the success of female founders and funders, women made up just 13% of all venture capitalists in 2020. An estimated 11% of fund managers were women, All Raise said.

“If we want to see diversity at the founder level, we need to invest in diversity at the capital allocator level – fund managers like me,” continued Rolfe. “It is almost more important to invest in venture capital funds with specific strategies for investing in different founders. This is where we will see the major changes.”

Revision of traditional investment figures

Nevertheless, various funds continue to face an uphill battle.

Since many are still in their infancy and have little success, they are usually outside the investment criteria of the institutes. As a result, managers often seek less lucrative and more time-consuming deals from private investors.

Pippa Lamb, a partner in early-stage mutual fund Sweet Capital, says such an approach needs to be revised.

The pricing of perceived risk based on a person’s race or gender is very out of date to me.

Pippa Lamb

Partner, Sweet Capital

“The pricing of perceived risk based on a person’s race or gender is very out of date to me,” said Lamb. “I would guess top-tier institutional investors are ready to do the job for full diligence managers no matter what they look like.”

“We need more diverse representation in all areas of the start-up ecosystem,” she said, citing female founders, female board members, female venture capitalists and female institutional investors. “When it comes to raising capital, the latter two are most critical, especially at the limited partner (LP) level: the investor’s investors.”

BCG’s Krentz hopes the tide will turn.

“Investors should understand that current market forces offer promising opportunities for women-owned companies,” he said. “The lack of funding means that there is less competition for women-supported companies and, on average, these companies perform better than companies with all male founders.”

But until this understanding grows, Rolfe and Lamb’s advice to female founders is simple: keep going.

“Women can do the same thing that male founders do to attract investors,” said Rolfe. “If you’re a great founder with a solid business plan and traction to prove your execution and thesis, that should be enough.”