An Exclusive Interview with New York City Renown Social Media Influencer Aline Hennessy

Image courtesy of https://www.instagram.com/_alinehennessy/

Aline Hennessy is an American-based social media influencer born December 17, 1987. Her family heritage traces back to The Sinclair Family, with French and Scottish ties. She is the CEO of “The Brand Hennessy”- a style-curated blog focused on fashion as art. She once styled alongside DVF and took part in various runway shows. Aline has previously been on several television shows including David Tutera’s CELEBrations and signed with Flawless Models based in NYC.

Aline Hennessy is a passionate social media influencer with more than 12K Instagram followers comprising a speedily, constantly growing and highly engaged audience. She is active in posting new posts and reels carefully crafted to reach her audience with specified goals which have been demonstrated to attract feedback from her audience especially pertaining to fashion, lifestyle real estate and more.

Born in Arlington, VA she has an estimated net worth of $500,000 – $800,000, hazel-colored eyes, and is the proud mother of two sons. Aline Hennessy grew up in Washington DC before moving to NYC where she kick-started her career in the fashion industry as a stylist, blogger, eventually became a social media influencer, and also got into the real estate business.

Hello Aline, nice to meet you. Let me start by asking you when and why you got into Social Media Influencing?
A: Nice to meet you too. I got into social media influence when I moved to New York City. I diversified having worked as a blogger and stylist in the fashion industry. It’s been approximately a decade and I am not about to look back. I saw a gap that needed to be filled.

When would you say no to a paid sponsorship?
A: I would say no to a paid sponsorship if the sponsoring brand’s goals, objectives, and what it stands for are contrary to mine. It’s a good thing to be sponsored but it is more important to stand for something.

How do you keep your social media influencer knowledge base up to date and relevant?
A: I can do that by frequent research and study to learn and identify what still works and what no longer does. It’s a constantly evolving business and you got to keep up. I also do a lot of networking with like-minded people and business leaders.

Care to explain scheduling regarding posting or uploading content?
A: Depending on the social media platform, you may want to post several times a day, once a day, weekly or monthly. What applies to one platform may not necessarily apply to another. The levels of engagement also vary and there are also other factors at play.

What are your personal goals as a social media influencer?
A: That would be to create visibility, adequately brand, market positioning, growing brand traffic, conversions and not forgetting growing brand loyalty for my clientele as well as for my business.

Have you received any social media influencer training?
A: Yes I have received several certificates, attended several conferences and workshops, and have most definitely learned a lot through experience.

What is your typical influencer campaign like, and can you walk me through a campaign from onset to completion?
A: I start by setting and agreeing on the goals and identifying the key performance indicators. I then proceed to map the nature of influencer activity required, build a strategy relevant to the goals and key performance indicators, identify other influencers if necessary to team up, and then schedule.

What evaluations do you carry out when taking on a new client zealous about building their audience?
A: I evaluate the “promotability” of the client’s brand, the quality of the product, the possibilities. Let’s sum it up as the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Do you recommend certain social media platforms over others? If so, which ones?
A: I wouldn’t necessarily because each of the leading platforms has an edge over others therefore it would be prudent to consider factors like the reach, the kind of product, amount of engagement, attention span, etc before deciding which one to use for a given campaign.

Let’s say a client is discouraged during a campaign. How do you keep that person inspired and enthusiastic?
A: I identify the cause of discouragement and subtly share the possibilities and a carefully crafted approach with examples of similar campaigns that were turned around to success.

If a client complains about a previously failed campaign, how do you handle that whilst formulating a new one? What do you do to ensure the same failures do not occur again?
A: Identify why the previous campaign failed and then formulate a comprehensive plan that includes solutions to remedy previous failures and systematically demonstrated approaches to ensure success.

Can you tell me three key steps you would recommend for all clients, and why?
A: This would be; identify the goals of the campaign, the target audience, and the key performance indicators because that is how you will measure whether a project is viable or will deliver desirable results.

How would you deal with a client who is unhappy with your work?
A: First off, I would show empathy at their unhappiness and then discuss the reason for their unhappiness. If their unhappiness is attributed to a mistake made by my team then I would consider sorting it out at my cost. If it is the client and their team that erred then they would have to take responsibility.

How would you structure a campaign for a previously popular celebrity or brand seeking to refreshen their popularity and regain their dominant position.
A: I would start by identifying what made them popular as well as who they were popular amongst, as those could be reignited. I would then target those whilst formulating a partnership with similar new celebrities or brands to come on board. This would cut across the old and new audiences and with a carefully crafted approach will reignite a fading star.

Describe how you would deal with unfairly deleted uploads or posts?
A: The first thing to do here is not losing my temper and understand why it has been deleted. If it is a genuine error, I will contact the relevant department to remedy it which they do and sometimes even compensate.

Describe your approach to foster cohesion amongst a broader audience.
A: When fostering cohesion amongst a broader audience, I would first study the audience to identify the similar or different audiences that are the prospect to blend with and then team up with different influencers relevant to the different audiences and then together formulate a strategy to execute.

Are there other social media influencers you would prefer to collaborate with?
A: Definitely, if you keep with my work and campaigns I am sure you will see and experience them. It however will vary based on specific campaign goals.

Are there other activities you actively engage in other than social media influencing?
A: I am currently an active associate in the real estate business and “The Brand Hennessy” a fashion and lifestyle blog.