Get ready. Black Influencers Weekend is coming to Atlanta November 1-3, 2024!
This weekend, presented by Black Girl Digital, originally started out as the Black Girl Digital Awards, an award show that honored Black women creators for their work and partnerships. The company, Black Girl Digital, manages the creator media spending across multiple channels for multiple brands. They aim to solve equity wage disparities for Black and Multicultural women in the creator economy.
So first, there was the award show for Black creators, and now in its third year, the one-day event has been revised into a three-day weekend filled with activities and concludes with the award show. We sat down with the company’s executive leader, LaToya Shambo, to get all the details. Shambo describes Black Girl Digital Awards as “the creator renaissance.” She explains, “You know, we really wanted to create a space for community, for celebrating creators, for celebrating them for the work, the actual work and impact that they’re doing in the space, in the advertising industry.”
With 18-plus years of corporate experience working with brands, ad networks, and agencies like Havas, Complex Media, and Oscar-winner Spike Lee’s DDB, Shambo’s concept is similar to entertainers and the Grammys. Once an entertainer receives a Grammy, they are paid more, so she wanted to create something similar to increase the creators’ value. She believes that Black creators set many trends and should be recognized for that.
In recent years, the Black Girl Digital Awards have honored people like Jackiaina, Chee Smalls, Claire Sulmers, and more. Each year, the number of honorees and attendees has grown. This year, Black Girl Digital has opened the awards to Black and multicultural men as well.
In addition, the company has added more activities. Shambo says, “We will have our VIP welcome kickoff and an influencer game night. And then on Saturday, we’re doing our summit. There will be the vendor village, which is a space that is going to be set up where brands can talk to creators and say, “This is how we want to work with creators. These are things that we look for. These are brand safety guidelines” and get feedback from creators as well.” She continues, “They can exchange contact information and build partnerships from there. And then, in the summit piece, we’re having creators teach creators. You know, like, this is how you edit. This is how you storyboard things like that. We’re going to have a conversation about pricing. We will have platforms come and teach and talk about how to best monetize on their platforms, and there will be fireside chats.”
You don’t want to miss this Black Influencers Weekend and the Black Girl Digital Awards. Walt Disney World, ORS, and D’Usse are the sponsors for this year’s event, and Snapchat will present a presentation.
Voting for the award selections is to begin this month. Stay abreast of developments at @blackgirldigital.
Read more Black Girl Magic News here.
