Tweeting, Instagramming and Facebooking away behind the social media handles of the Long Beach Area Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) is Loren Simpson – a Long Beach native with a background that is strikingly reminiscent of the hit film “The Devil Wears Prada,” but perhaps without the melodrama.

 

Former assistant to Brooke Shields, West Coast associate editor for Marie Claire and celebrity stylist, Simpson’s background in entertainment might not seem a natural fit to manage the CVB’s social media strategy, but as she tells it, there’s more to the story than glamour and expensive shoes. (But don’t get her wrong – she’s rather fond of that part of the story, too.)

Long Beach native Loren Simpson, who helms the social media and digital communications efforts for the city’s convention and visitors bureau, has had a storied career – she started off as a nanny to Brooke Shields, and eventually became a stylist to the stars. She now uses the skills she learned in Hollywood to promote Long Beach across social media platforms. (Photograph by the Business Journal’s Larry Duncan)

 

A CIF champion on Wilson High School’s basketball team, Simpson’s career in sports took her to college out of state, landing her at small, historically black college in New Orleans. She eventually transferred and graduated from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and a minor in Spanish. She put herself through school as a nanny for affluent couples – the gig that eventually led her to actress Brooke Shields.

 

“When I came back here – it’s such a small world – someone knew someone who needed a babysitter. It just so happened to be Brooke Shields. Go figure,” Simpson said. Babysitting turned into nannying, which eventually turned into working as Shields’ assistant. “We were bicoastal, so I was living both in New York and here, which was an incredible experience,” she recalled.

 

After Simpson had her first daughter, she transitioned back to Southern California to become West Coast associate editor for Marie Claire. “I served as the liaison for the magazine when they did cover shoots here,” she explained, adding that the magazine is based in New York.

 

Simpson worked directly under the West Coast editor for the magazine, who was also a stylist. With experience styling for Shields, Simpson quickly began assisting her editor on styling jobs, eventually making a career of it herself.

 

“I did red carpet looks, movie premieres, you name it. I worked with clients such as Blake Lively, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashley Simpson, Molly Sims. The list goes on,” Simpson said. “It was fun. Tons of schlepping garment bags and racks, but that was also the fun part: shoes and clothes and jewelry.”

 

One of the standout moments in her nine years in entertainment was getting a thank you in the foreword of Paltrow’s cookbook, “My Father’s Daughter.” “That was amazing. It might even be up there with the birth of my children,” Simpson said, laughing.

 

After a few years, Simpson had a second daughter, and as a single mother, the instability of her career in entertainment eventually led her to seek out a new opportunity. “I loved the world I was in, but I knew I needed structure,” she said. “I needed to have more of a safety net for my children, being that it’s just me. If anything were to happen to me, I don’t have anything to leave my two girls.”

 

Cue the CVB, where Simpson has worked as digital communications manager for more than two years. The appeal of working for the CVB wasn’t just that it was 10 minutes away from her home in Long Beach and that it offered stability, but also that it afforded her the opportunity to work for her community, Simpson reflected.

 

When Simpson was working with celebrities, it was at a time when social media was quickly evolving from its original use as a forum to connect with peers. So as she worked alongside celebrities, she helped them leverage social media to their benefit, she explained. “That definitely translated to what I do here for the CVB,” she said.

 

At the time she came on board to the CVB, the organization didn’t have much of a social media strategy other than simply having a presence on various platforms. “I was impressed by the fact that we did have a presence . . . but I definitely saw a way to grow,” she said.

While social media involves a lot of time and strategizing across multiple channels, Simpson’s core philosophy for the CVB’s online presence is predicated on an age-old, simple principle: say thank you.

 

Much of the CVB’s strategy on social media involves responding to and sharing user-generated content about Long Beach, such as photos or videos, Simpson explained. “Say you post something on Instagram, and it’s a shot of the airport,” she said. “And it’s got the fire pits and the palm trees, and I’ll go on there and comment, ‘Fantastic photo! Thanks for sharing.’ And then in turn, later on down the line, I’ll use that photo – crediting you and displaying your city.”

 

It takes work to find such people and content, but doing so has helped to grow the CVB’s reach and advance its mission to promote Long Beach. “As a whole, it sheds light on what Long Beach has to offer,” Simpson said.

 

Simpson recalled how, during her time at college in the early 2000s, whenever she said she was from Long Beach, people typically only associated the city with rap music. “That is definitely part of Long Beach, but we have so much more to offer,” she said. “It’s the food, it’s the Queen [Mary], it’s the Aquarium, it’s the fantastic museums we have here. . . . And I think that social media allows us to spread that message.”

 

When Simpson started with the CVB, its social media-based online sweepstakes, Beach With Benefits, was only a summer campaign. Since then, she’s helped to extend it year-round, engaging more people online. “[Now] people who live in different states are using our Beach With Benefits hashtag,” she said. “They’re also using our This Is LB hashtag, which is closely connected to our blog, ‘This Is Long Beach.’”

 

The CVB’s social media followers have more than doubled since Simpson joined the team, she said. “For Instagram, we started with 45 followers, and now we’re over 4,000,” she noted.

 

“When I am in a different city and someone mentions Southern California, instead of someone saying, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve been to L.A.,’ or ‘I know San Diego,’ or ‘I’ve been to Disneyland,’ I totally want them to say Long Beach,” Simpson said. “When anyone thinks about typical Southern California, they’re thinking about palm trees, they’re thinking about the beach, they’re thinking about blue waters and sands, and that just isn’t L.A. But it’s totally Long Beach.”