As the world becomes more and more digital, your online persona is becoming increasingly important. Who are you? What do you know about? How are you going to change the world?
Digital Talent Agents (DTA) is a company based out of Columbia, Missouri, that helps people use the internet to become thought leaders in their field. Since launching in January of this year, when they had less than 15 clients, DTA now has over 50 people enlisting their help with writing, editing, and connecting with publishers.
With a pay for performance fee scale that leads the average client to spend between 500 and 5000 dollars a month, DTA is more affordable than a full-scale PR team, making them an awesome choice for cash strapped entrepreneurs who are trying to get their names out there.
I sat down last week with Kelsey Meyer, Senior Vice President of Digital Talent Agents, to talk about what her company does and her experiences as a woman in the tech world. I think some of her answers might surprise you…
Why don’t you tell me a little bit about Digital Talent Agents?
Digital Talent Agents is a niche online PR company. We focus on working with entrepreneurs, consultants, experts, corporate leaders, even university staff.
The niche that we focus on is helping them to establish themselves as thought leaders. Traditional PR will send out press releases and try to get quotes about companies or maybe get a spotlight but we’re taking the approach of working with the clients to help them create content that shows their expertise and is informative and entertaining.
We then work on getting that content published in reputable publications to help build their authority and credibility and really establish themselves as thought leaders.
I know you graduated from college pretty recently. That’s really great that you were able to get a position in a successful business right after graduating, especially considering the job climate right now.
Yeah, I feel really fortunate. The people here really do such a great job finding students who are passionate about entrepreneurship and are passionate about working hard and really trying to get something new off the ground and then letting us grow and letting us learn.
I know that if I had gone to work for a large corporation I would never have had the opportunities and be able to do the things that I’m doing here so I absolutely love it.
Who do you think most benefits from Digital Talent Agents?
I’m probably kind of biased because I love working with the entrepreneurs so in my mind they definitely benefit the most, but it’s kind of hard to say because I would say entrepreneurs, specifically startups, because a lot of times they might not have the huge budget to work with a really large PR firm, but we’re on a pay for performance basis so they only pay us if we actually deliver and get their articles published.
I think that entrepreneurs understand the value in that and that’s why we’ve been able to have some really great success.
I noticed on your bio that you like to promote women in entrepreneurship. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
Absolutely! I think that the tech world, specifically, is primarily dominated by men and there’s no reason it has to continue that way.
Actually, last night I attended the first Girls in Tech mid-Missouri group meeting. Girls in Tech is a global organization but some women here decided that they wanted to start the mid-Missouri chapter.
It was the first planning meeting so we’re still trying to figure out exactly what we want to do but the objectives are things like promote awareness of female entrepreneurs in the community, promote upcoming leaders—so working with student groups or junior achievement groups to show younger girls that you can be an entrepreneur and you can be in the tech industry.
I think a lot of times women entrepreneurs think small. Just looking at the statistics there are a lot more women entrepreneurs but a lot of them are still doing smaller startups and men, for some reason, seem to be primarily in the tech high growth.
I would just really love to see that change so I’m always looking for ways that I can promote women in entrepreneurship.
In terms of your experience in the tech world, have you faced any issues specifically as a woman?
Not really, simply because we’re a fairly small company and our company consists primarily of women. I think that within our own company we dominate that space, but the only time I have felt that was attending conferences.
I think that it’s a combination of being a woman and being young and [the fact that] I look younger than I even am. I attended a conference in April and I remember I was speaking to one of the men and it was one of those situations where you can feel someone looking over your shoulder for the more important person in the room.
I think that someone asked me something about what our company does and I explained how we had grown really quickly over the last six months and the guys just looked and me and said, “What, but you’re like, 15, right?” My gut instinct was to rip into him but instead I said, “Oh, thank you, that’s very flattering.”
I think that maybe a young man would get the same kind of prejudice against him at a conference but I felt that it is a little more difficult to be taken seriously when you not only have men thinking that a woman shouldn’t be in this world and then also thinking that a young woman really doesn’t know what she’s doing.
Photo and Video Credits
FreeDigitalPhotos.net / YouTube.com / BrandYourSelf.com / GirlsInTech.org
