Jennifer Prudhome Booker is the Senior Manager of Digital Site Experience. The business operates in the growing digital world of e-commerce and product management. Booker has a background in content strategy and marketing experience. She continues to receive much admiration for her diverse commitment to the retail and tech industry.
Jennifer Prudhome Booker speaks with Rosemarie Miller on 'Forbes Talks' on her non-profit in Ghana, Africa, the importance of connecting brand to audience, and how authentic brand stories can resonate with consumers.
0:00 Introduction
0:21 About Digital Site Experience
1:12 What Inspired Jennifer To Pursue This Endeavor
3:32 How Can I Build An Online Audience?
4:28 Jennifer's Examples Of Connecting Brand To Your Audience
5:12 How Have GenZ And Millennials Changed The Way We Interact With
6:36 Jennifer's Nonprofit Work -One Step Initiative
7:26 How Ghana Is Rich With Opportunities
Jennifer Prudhome Booker speaks with Rosemarie Miller on 'Forbes Talks' on her non-profit in Ghana, Africa, the importance of connecting brand to audience, and how authentic brand stories can resonate with consumers.
0:00 Introduction
0:21 About Digital Site Experience
1:12 What Inspired Jennifer To Pursue This Endeavor
3:32 How Can I Build An Online Audience?
4:28 Jennifer's Examples Of Connecting Brand To Your Audience
5:12 How Have GenZ And Millennials Changed The Way We Interact With
6:36 Jennifer's Nonprofit Work -One Step Initiative
7:26 How Ghana Is Rich With Opportunities
Category
🦄
CreativityTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:04 Hi, everyone.
00:04 I'm Rose Marie Miller, and I am backstage at the Forbes BLK
00:08 Summit with Jen Prud'homme Booker,
00:10 the senior manager of digital site experience
00:12 for a Fortune 300 company.
00:15 Thank you so much for joining me today, Jen.
00:17 Thank you for having me.
00:18 Absolutely.
00:19 So Jen, could you just tell us a little bit about what you do?
00:22 Sure.
00:22 So I work in the e-commerce industry, which is better
00:25 known as shopping online, right?
00:27 But specifically, I support enterprises as well
00:30 as entrepreneurs on building their digital presence online.
00:33 So that's everything from informational,
00:35 promotional value, or even just telling people who you are,
00:39 right, how you communicate to the world,
00:41 what your digital presence is, what's
00:42 the value of your service, and who you serve.
00:44 And who you serve.
00:45 Yes.
00:46 So what is the value of your digital presence?
00:49 Sure.
00:49 I mean, it's meeting an audience that maybe you've never
00:51 connected with in person, right?
00:53 It's the difference of being based maybe in one state
00:56 and connecting with an audience, global or not,
00:58 elsewhere within reach, right?
01:00 Just because you have access to social media or a website
01:03 presence, right?
01:05 So just enhancing those connection points
01:08 on behalf of having some type of web presence
01:10 or digital presence that you maintain.
01:12 So what inspired you to pursue this path?
01:15 It was the recession.
01:16 It was legitimately the recession.
01:18 So I have a background in merchandising and design.
01:21 And during the recession, there was just a huge opening
01:24 opportunity to step into tech.
01:26 And so I wholeheartedly started not just
01:28 being a fashion professional, but a fashion e-commerce
01:31 professional.
01:32 And that's how I dove into that aspect of the industry.
01:34 I started off just managing brands,
01:36 all kinds of pivotal brands in the fashion industry,
01:40 and giving them access to their customers
01:42 by way of their e-commerce sites.
01:44 These are people who were selling in stores
01:47 that otherwise were not doing really well in the recession.
01:50 And having web presence in a website changed all of that.
01:53 You were able to recapture those sales online,
01:56 build new audiences, engage and connect with them
01:58 in different ways on social media.
02:00 And so we just helped them fine tune how to do that.
02:02 And that was at the earliest stage of my career.
02:05 And I just kind of kept growing.
02:06 I was working with brands individually,
02:09 as well as large enterprise companies.
02:11 And it kept going.
02:12 Social media is someone else's platform.
02:15 This is Zuckerberg's platform, largely.
02:17 Sure, sure.
02:18 Is that not risky to put so much of your--
02:22 Yes, please.
02:23 --your income, your identity, your crab
02:26 onto someone else's platform?
02:28 Is this making sense?
02:29 Yes.
02:30 The response is, it depends.
02:31 OK.
02:32 Some people or small businesses really
02:35 do not have the means to pay for all that on their own, right?
02:39 Hire a developer.
02:40 Hire a marketer.
02:41 So you're leveraging these platforms as services,
02:44 essentially, to streamline access to all of that, right?
02:47 You're also essentially paying that person to have access
02:49 to millions of users.
02:52 In this instance, if we're talking about meta and Instagram,
02:54 we're talking about over 300 million users.
02:57 To pay for that independently is a lot, right?
03:00 So there is a caveat to not having a platform.
03:05 But you can start there, build that audience,
03:07 and then maybe get them over to your newsletter, right?
03:10 Your e-newsletter.
03:11 Get them to sign up.
03:12 So now, you're aggregating all that interest off
03:16 of these platforms.
03:17 And you're pulling them into your own personal channels,
03:20 right?
03:21 That would be the higher goal.
03:22 But you have to start somewhere to get there.
03:25 You have to engage them directly.
03:26 And then, get them committed to coming over
03:29 to your own personal channel.
03:30 But you have to start somewhere.
03:32 So once you build that audience-- so let's say,
03:34 you know, I have my business page.
03:35 I've built my audience.
03:36 I have 200,000 followers.
03:39 Is it necessary for me to still pay
03:41 for a little advertising slot on those social media platforms?
03:45 Or at that point, am I good just posting my content?
03:49 Depends on the intent.
03:50 So if you're posting content solely to engage them,
03:53 maybe not.
03:55 But if you're paying for advertising
03:57 with the intent of taking that 200,000 followers to 2 million,
04:01 you may want to, right?
04:03 As long as the advertising is engaging,
04:05 it's also tapping into a need, right?
04:08 Not just a want, but a need.
04:10 So that that person can keep coming, keep looking for you,
04:13 not X out--
04:14 we've all done that to a certain extent.
04:16 You see an ad, and you X out of it
04:17 because you're just like, I'm not interested.
04:19 But tapping into that interest to grow your audience,
04:22 that's a worthwhile payment for that advertising.
04:24 But if it's solely just to engage them, maybe not.
04:28 Can you give us some examples of good advertisements
04:31 that have converted viewers to customers?
04:34 I think good advertisements that converts viewers to customers
04:37 are authentic.
04:38 It's always the folks that willingly show you
04:42 how something works, and they're actively engaging with it,
04:45 right?
04:46 We see that a lot in paid advertising.
04:48 The old school version of that is on commercials,
04:50 where someone is actually showing you how it works.
04:53 And someone says, ah, I see how that solves my problem,
04:56 versus something that's maybe a little bit more inauthentic
05:00 or a form of artificial design, right?
05:03 It really depends on what the product is.
05:05 But I've noticed that the most authentic engagement
05:08 with customers is high in conversion, high in opportunity.
05:12 So Gen Z is different from millennials--
05:16 Totally.
05:17 --like how we consume content and what
05:19 we think is authentic versus what
05:21 a millennial thinks is authentic.
05:23 Could you talk about that, that shift?
05:25 Sure.
05:25 I think the shift boils down to they're
05:27 consuming things very quickly.
05:30 And a lot of it is hyper-engaged in digital touch points,
05:34 so music, visuals, right?
05:37 And as long as it's something tangible,
05:39 they will engage with it.
05:40 That's where you kind of start seeing
05:42 artificial intelligence or even metaverse being of interest.
05:45 It doesn't have to be a real person
05:47 for a lot of generations.
05:48 But you do have that generation that says, uh-uh.
05:50 I want to see or talk to a real person.
05:53 And that's a generational thing, right?
05:55 I think with Gen Z, they don't mind
05:58 if it's some type of-- even like an avatar of somebody.
06:01 You see that a lot in gaming, right?
06:03 So it really just depends on the level of conviction and trust
06:06 that they have in the method.
06:08 You have one generation that makes feelings about avatars
06:12 and engaging with that to buy a product.
06:14 And you have another generation that says,
06:15 we don't mind if it is the digital version of yourself
06:18 or a metaverse version of yourself,
06:19 as long as I actually get what I want
06:22 and get that kind of responsiveness,
06:24 whether it is someone who buys an emoji
06:27 and puts a crown on you as a filter, right?
06:30 People want that receptiveness to whatever
06:32 they're buying into and feel good about the decision
06:35 that they made.
06:36 Well, Jen, I know that you do other things as well.
06:39 We were talking before this interview started
06:42 about the nonprofit.
06:43 And I do want to mention that.
06:45 Sure.
06:46 Tell us about it.
06:47 So I work for a nonprofit called One Step Initiative.
06:50 And it gives opportunities to high-risk youth
06:52 that don't have access to study abroad opportunities.
06:54 The reason why that's important is
06:56 because working as an e-commerce professional
06:58 and a digital professional, I've had opportunities afforded to me
07:01 to where I could go abroad and work abroad.
07:03 The first point of doing that is really about having a passport.
07:06 And the reality is we have kids in the United States
07:09 that don't even have access to a passport.
07:12 And so we want to make sure that not only do they
07:14 have job opportunities here, but if they
07:15 want to go abroad and study in Japan or work in Japan
07:20 or work in Ghana, they can do that
07:23 by first having their passport and learning
07:24 how to be a global citizen.
07:26 And why Ghana?
07:27 Ghana specifically has a really close,
07:30 I want to say, historical and heritage connection
07:33 to the founder of our organization.
07:35 His name is Brian Booker.
07:37 And one of the things that we've really looked to do
07:39 is go to a place and space where they're investing
07:42 in entrepreneurialism.
07:43 They're investing in being an expat.
07:46 They understand that there are people
07:48 who are interested in coming from the United States
07:50 that not only want to learn about Ghana,
07:52 but want to travel there because they have job interests,
07:56 that want to invest in new economies.
07:58 Today, I know that there's a part of the summit where
08:01 we're talking about investing in Africa.
08:03 Well, how do you do that?
08:04 And I feel like Ghana's done a really great job,
08:06 the tourism agencies and the like,
08:08 of tapping into students, entrepreneurs,
08:11 saying, "Hey, come and invest with us.
08:13 "Join us and learn about those opportunities.
08:15 "Learn how you can actually live and work in Ghana
08:17 "and establish your life here."
08:18 So those level of connection points
08:20 have made it really easy to have partners there
08:22 that support that effort.
08:24 - You know, I love that you guys do that
08:26 because we don't always think of places like Ghana
08:29 when we're thinking about those opportunities.
08:31 - Yes, think global, you know,
08:33 or even just, they have enterprises no different
08:36 than we have here.
08:38 You know, they have Google there.
08:40 You know, there was a Twitter office
08:42 at one point in time now called X there.
08:44 So they have growing economies of interest
08:48 that you could live and work here for a company,
08:50 but what if they said, "Hey, we'd like you
08:52 "to do a special project for us there."
08:54 How do you go about doing that
08:55 if you don't even have a passport as a starting point?
08:57 So we work with the kids in understanding
09:00 how to be a global citizen,
09:01 but also to prepare yourselves,
09:03 workforce development that might not just be here
09:05 in the United States, it might be elsewhere.
09:07 - It might be elsewhere. - It might be elsewhere.
09:08 - Yes, indeed.
09:09 Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Dan.
09:11 - No, thank you.
09:12 Thank you for the opportunity, absolutely.
09:14 - Thank you.
09:15 (upbeat music)
09:18 (upbeat music)
09:20 [BLANK_AUDIO]