Like it or loathe it, the world of social media is big business.

As we all spend increasing amounts of time online, firms are paying hefty fees to YouTubers, TikTokers and Instagram influencers in return for promoting their products. However, unlike industries dominated by those who might be considered pale, male and stale, those at the top of the influencer game are, for the most part, women in their twenties and thirties.

And as the power of influencing grows, there’s one Scottish firm proudly leading the charge. Uddingston-based Aquarius Creative is one of the UK’s leading influencer marketing agencies, representing some of Scotland’s most popular online personalities and seeing near-exponential profit growth as a result. Despite being just over three years old, Aquarius Creative has gone from strength to strength, seemingly uninhibited by lockdown or the cost-of-living crisis.

The firm was founded by Kirsten Cameron and Amy Moore, who have recently starred in their own six-part BBC TV series The Agency: Unfiltered, which gives viewers an in-depth insight into Aquarius Creative. Aged 26 and 31 respectively, Moore and Cameron have a combined age of 57 – the same age as the UK’s average CEO, according to a 2022 report from SpencerStuart.

Despite their youth, the two are unashamedly confident in their business.

“We want to be known on a global scale,” says Cameron. “We feel we have dominated the Scottish market in terms of what we do so we want to go further afield, starting in England and then going abroad. Dubai is a target for us, we’ve done some work there in the past, but we would also love to eventually open offices in the USA.”

The Herald: Amy Moore (left) and Kirsten Cameron (right)Amy Moore (left) and Kirsten Cameron (right) (Image: BBC Scotland)

“We are young,” acknowledges Moore, “but so is the social media and influencer marketing industry. We are actually among the most experienced people within the industry, as we’ve been working in social media since 2015.”

Both studied fashion at Glasgow Caledonian University – where there was no specific teaching on social media – then met while working at Glasgow-based clothing brand Quiz. Cameron started the firm’s social media department, then hired Moore, who was a fashion blogger herself, after meeting at an event. With none of their superiors having expertise in social media, the two ran the department like a business within a business, soon realising they could branch out on their own.

“Everything that we do has been self-taught,” Moore explains. “Our courses at university didn’t have any social media modules, at Quiz there was never anyone guiding us when it came to working with influencers. We’ve always been in a position where we had to make decisions on our own. We had been working together for about three years and were coming back from a business trip when we got stuck on the Tarmac on a delayed flight. We started chatting through all the things we had achieved and how much the influencer industry had grown . . . and we had the idea for Aquarius.”

“It took us six months to actually do anything,” adds Cameron. 
“It was a big risk for us. We were in secure jobs with decent salaries, so we were really nervous to leave. But then in February 2020 we quit our jobs and set up Aquarius.”

Starting a business two weeks before the pandemic meant they didn’t qualify for any grants or support when lockdown hit. 
However, despite losing some of their biggest clients within the first month of opening, Cameron and Moore managed to use the pandemic-induced shift to the online sphere to their advantage. Moore says: “We worked for about a year and a half remotely before we managed to get an office, and it has surprised us how quickly we have managed to grow."

“I think just about year on year we’ve managed to double our turnover and staff, so we are hoping that’s a target we can keep achieving every year.”

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Their business is split between providing bespoke marketing solutions for brands and managing their team of influencers. They now have 20 influencers on their books (all but one are female), and Aquarius Creative take 20% of their earnings.

Cameron explains: “It’s near footballers’ wages that they are earning. There is serious money to be made from influencing. It is something that can get a lot of stick, and people are perhaps ignorant to what it all involves, but it’s a career path now and these girls are making a fortune doing something they love.”

What makes influencers so appealing to brands? According to Moore, it is more than just their follower numbers. Analytics allow brands to monitor the demographic of an influencer’s following down to age, location and even gender – allowing them to advertise with exactly the desired audience for their products. 

They can also track how many people ‘click through’ to their website from an influencer’s account, something Aquarius Creative pay close attention to before signing a new name to their books.

“There are loads of things we would look for and monitor before we signed someone. Once they sign, we guide our influencers in trends that are doing well and give them lots of tips and tricks. But in terms of their general content we want them to stay true to themselves. We look for people who are authentic, who post all aspects of their life and are open with their audience.”

The two are, naturally, very active themselves on social media, with nearly 90,000 Instagram followers between their personal accounts and that of Aquarius Creative. 

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A recent addition to Cameron’s feed is pictures of her baby daughter, Acé, who was born last August.

“We joke that I have two babies,” she laughs, “the business and my actual baby! It has been hard trying to balance it all, but the lucky thing is I can take her into work, we have lots of women in the office that she can get passed around. But when it’s your own business you can’t really switch off, so it is difficult – but the rewards are totally worth it.”

Her pregnancy and labour are featured in the documentary, which has proven to be a hit online. 

“People are coming up to us all the time to say they have been watching the show,” Cameron explains, “and even the postman stopped me the other day to tell me he had seen me on TV!”

And with the way things are going for Aquarius Creative, you can expect to be seeing a lot more of them in future. 

www.aquariuscreative.co.uk