The Social Element's Tamara Littleton Pioneered Remote Work Before It Was Cool

In 2002, Tamara Littleton founded her agency, Emoderation, to help brands create communities online. That was before the era of MySpace, when the most popular social media platform was Friendster. "It was the dot-com boom days," Littleton recalled. "I was working in content and communities, and I had a vision about that. I felt very strongly that brands would want to be in online communities." That vision, of course, turned out to be more true than most people could have imagined. More than two decades later, Emoderation has rebranded to The Social Element—to recognize the agency's social media focus—and now employs about 280 people, working with major brands including Oreo, Peloton, Visa and Dr Pepper. Stick to your guns Littleton established the agency as a remote-first company from the beginning, long before Covid-19. Being fully remote had financial incentives: As a startup, her budget was lean and she didn't think it made sense to pay for office space. It also allowed her to build a diverse and internationally representative workforce. But it wasn't always easy. "It felt like people were kind of questioning it," she said. "They would often say, 'Well, how do you trust the people are working for you, and how do you keep them motivated?'" Looking back, Littleton feels she let those concerns shake her belief in a model that she knew was working well for her company and her employees—and one that, following the pandemic, "has become the agency-of-the-future model," she said. Learn to cede control As the company has grown, Littleton has been forced to delegate major operational responsibilities to her staff, which wasn't easy at first for the self-described "control freak." Littleton has learned over the years that staying relevant requires bringing in fresh perspectives. Hiring and promoting people like Ashley Cooksley, CEO for North America; Kendall DiBella, managing director for North America; and Linn Frost, managing director for Europe, has been critical to The Social Element's continued growth, she said. "What's vital for the growth of an agency, to keep innovating and to make sure that we're at the cutting edge: You have to let go," Littleton said. "You find people better than you, and then you stand back and let them be entrepreneurial themselves." Use your platform for positive change As an openly queer female founder, Littleton has also learned the value of using her platform as a way to push for positive social change. "It took me a little while to actually realize I had that privilege, but also I had a responsibility to speak up," she said. Over time, Littleton began to realize the value of simply being open about her identity and experience, serving as a role model in public forums and running The Social Element in an intentionally inclusive manner. "It's never been a big deal that I've been out. That, again, is a privilege because so many people join our industry and either go back in the closet or don't feel safe to be themselves in different agencies or [on the] brand side," Littleton said. "It's all about normalization and representation, about what can I do to make sure that everyone always felt safe at my agency," she added. "Just by these incremental changes, they start to make a difference." WORK HISTORY Before 2002, Littleton’s career path wasn’t exactly linear or premeditated. She “fell into publishing”: After college, Littleton joined a hockey team in London, and the team captain hired her as a publishing assistant for an engineering trade magazine. There, she helped with the group’s digital transition in the early days of the web. That led to a job at Chapman and Hall (now Thomson Science), and subsequent roles in online operations and web publishing at the BBC Online and internet provider Chello Broadband. After Chello offered her voluntary redundancy, she took the leap and founded her agency.