Hello there,
My name is Laurise McMillian, also known as @lauriseirl on the Internet. I’m a freelance social media and content expert iso of Content Director-esque roles. Holla @ me, baby.
Social strategy: growth, campaigns + creative
Refinery29 Unbothered IG: Pitched, concepted and launched a new Instagram and sub-brand for Refinery29, dedicated to Black women empowerment, called @r29unbothered. Ran and managed the account with little to no resources. Unbothered was dubbed Refinery29’s fast growing social media platform after the first year. Learn more about my strategy here.
Refinery29 Unbothered FB: Launched a Facebook account. Created a strategy to nurture the community launched a FB Group for Black women creatives. Grew the group to ~4000 highly engaged women. Learn more about my strategy here.
29Rooms: Spearheaded 29Rooms (R29’s multi-city experiential event) social strategy. Create run-of-shows that highlighted each exhibit across all social channels. Strategy incorporated ways to highlight celebrity-partnered exhibits, as well as branded content. Check out the 29Rooms Instagram, here.
Refinery29 Good As Hell Podcast: Charged with creating a social media marketing plan for Refinery29’s joint podcast with Spotify, Good As Hell. Created the social marketing campaign run-of-show and went to each taping to capture content of host, Lizzo and her various guests: Lil Kim, Junglepussy, Kehlani and more. Read more about the project here.
Meta for Business’s Social Skills: Led strategy and hosted season three of Social Skills, a show about the people behind your favorite social media accounts. Worked with a producer and an editorialist to lead pre-production. Selected businesses and social media editors to cast based on which features Meta, the brand, wanted to highlight. For this season we focused on paid ads. Watch all the episodes here.
Social video: scripting, filming + editing
Instagram for Business Reels: Acted as an in-house content creator for social media videos.
Watch some of my faves below:
Social video: production management
Julie Healthcare: Worked with a third-party production agency to create organic content and paid video ads for Julie’s Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts. Briefed in 11 videos every two weeks, and acted as the liaison between Julie’s in-house team and these partners. Ensured content is on-time and quality is up to standard before allowing them to be used for programming. Below are some of the best performing UGC videos to come out of this production pipeline.
Did You Know Julie Was Avail Online?
Meta for Business’s Social Skills: Worked with third-party agency, Vactionland, to create season three of Social Skills: a high-budget original video series designed to teach users tricks from the industry’s best social media professionals. Worked closely with this team to cast talent, design the set and to provide multiple rounds of feedback for each deliverable . Watch all the episodes here.
Influencer, talent + creator partnerships
Instagram for Business Reels: Selects creators and talent to feature on @InstagramForBusiness. Works with talent to script a Reel, manage production timelines and assist with managing contract negotiations.
Unbothered x Instagram Collaboration: Pulled influencers out of Instagram’s Black History Month event, one by one, to film them in the studio for a mash up video where the talent sounded off about their experience as a Black creator. Talent included Scottie Beam, Kellie B., Tracy G, and the Quan Sisters. Watch it here.
Instagram (brand) Reels Campaign with The Jed Foundation: Brought on by Meta as a third-party agency to produce 6 Reels with 6 creators. Reels were designed to emphasize the Instagram Equity team’s goal of creating a kinder, mental-health conscience experience on the platform. Spearheaded timelines, payment negotiations and all coordination efforts and finalized edits that came in from the creators. Read more about the campaign here.
Art direction: working with design
+ photo to create a full story
Wash Day Filter for Refinery29: Worked closely with experiential design team on the branding for Wash Day, virtual event. Decided textures that mimicked Black hair would inform the design. Worked with designer to translate the event branding into a filter people could use at home to create their own UGC. See the filter here.
Animated Reel for Instagram for Business: Collaborated with the design team to change or typical still-graphic posts into animations because Reels performed better than photos.
R29 Unbothered BHM Guide: Launched a design challenge prompt in Unbothered’s FB Group for Black women creatives asking people to illustrate a Black woman in history who has inspired them. The only specs was that they had to use a provided color palette and post their work to their personal profile. 30 of the best submissions were curated into an Instagram guide that made the audience feel seen and included. Check out the Guide here.
A Long Line of Queendom experiential activation at 29Rooms: Asked to assist with the creative direction of Unbothered’s installation at 29Rooms 2018, as one of the creators and as the editor who ran the Instagram account. Worked with the experiential design team to create a concept, select language from our Instagram captions to be illustrated on the walls, choose type of activities would take place in the space and more. Read more about the installation here.
Giphy x R29 Unbothered Sticker Collab: Pitched a partnership to Giphy where one animated sticker was commissioned from a curated group of 9 Black women illustrators in honor of Women’s History Month. Sticker can be used on Instagram stories, iMessage, and anywhere Giphy can be accessed. See the stickers here, and read more about the collaboration here. (Fun fact: I actually illustrated and animated one, myself!)
Stop-motion Reel for Instagram Business: Concepted a stop-motion video to make a dense concept easier to grasp. Worked with design team to storyboard and pre-plan each frame. How to A/B Test Your Way to Success
Editorial strategy: ip series creation
Go Off Sis podcast season one for Refinery29 Unbothered: Created a social media video series in which we invited Black women to sound off of specific topics for smash cuts. Concept was so successful that I was asked to transform it into a podcast. Worked with the VP of content and a tiger team of 2 editors and 2 producers to bring the first-ever season of Go Off Sis, the podcast to life. The first season was bought by a paid sponsor. (Fun fact: I was also a season one host!) Check out the podcast here.
About My Business career column for Refinery29 Unbothered: Saw an audience need for more career advice for minorities via social listening. Pitched and wrote a monthly column to answer Black women's career questions. Each column brought on another industry professional to help me answer a career question from our FB group members.
How to Make Your Small Business More Eco-Friendly with Green Girl Leah
How This Black and Asian Director Ensures Representation In Her Work
How Podcasters Teala Dunn and Nia Sioux Manage Microaggressions in the Industry
The Digital Director of Harper’s Bazaar’s Formula for Pitching Magazines
How to Make Sure the Internet Doesn’t Steal Your Ideas with DonYe Taylor
Bylines + copy
Juneteenth Instagram post for Teva: Was commissioned by Teva to write copy for their Juneteenth artist collaboration. Check it out here.
@@alicewietzel x #R29Collab for Refinery29: Wrote copy for commissioned artist collabs.
Full ELLE.com byline here.
Full seventeen.com byline here.
Full cosmopolitan.com byline here.
Full refinery29.com byline here.
Black Girl Sports for Calling All Horse Girls (print)
Girls’ Life magazine (print)
On-camera + hosting
Meta for Business’s Social Skills: After being casted as talent for season one, I was asked to be the lead strategist and host of season three of Social Skills, a show about the people behind your favorite social media accounts. I worked with a producer and an editorialist to lead pre-production. We chose what businesses and social media editors we wanted to highlight based on which features Meta, the brand, wanted to highlight. For this season we focused on paid ads. This experience was amazing. I got to wear many hats, from scripting to working with our third-party production team to art direct the hand-made set, to interviewing social editors for casting to being on-camera. Watch all the episodes here.
Go Off Sis video series for Refinery29 Unbothered: Acted as an internal content creator for social media videos.