Carmen Proctor – Unsung Hero

Carmen’s approach

Carmen’s highlights

Carmen’s colleagues say that she has an infectious “make it flippin’ fun” attitude, and is laser-focused on making content that is both entertaining and useful. Her ability to translate complex information into simple messages was key to the council’s Covid-19 campaign’s success.

As part of the Covid-19 campaign, Carmen thought out of the box. With a goal to reach younger audiences, she worked with colleges and universities, creating “partner packs”, simple messaging, and FAQs. Her innovative approach helped to deliver 319,000 Covid boosters, smashing her 300,000 target. Most importantly, by protecting local residents, Carmen delivered on Staffordshire County Council’s key outcomes to make local people healthier.

TikTok triumphs

Carmen’s creativity shines brightest on TikTok. In 2025 alone, Carmen’s work has helped double the council’s TikTok following, achieving:

• 1.9m views (+146%)
• 49,000 likes (+206%)
• 2,218 new followers (+71%)

Within her first year as Social Media Content Creator, she produced the council’s top three most-viewed and liked TikToks:

• “Hidden gem in Staffordshire” – 443,400 views, 7,022 likes, +795 new followers
• “Traffic cones donated to polar bears” – 330,600 views, 8,398 likes
• “SGT Watman mascot awareness” – 113,200 views, 11,100 likes, 267 comments

Carmen is always looking for new ways to make comms fun and relatable. To promote meeting rooms at enterprise centres, she created a series of humorous TikToks using relatable office humour.

Fostering community pride, boosting the local economy

Carmen is also the brains behind the council’s viral “Shop Local” series, sparked by a single TikTok comment. A comment on Staffordshire Council’s viral “Spudman” video on TikTok suggested celebrating lesser-known local businesses. Carmen leapt into action, creating a monthly “Shop Local” series.

The series fostered community pride and shone a spotlight on local businesses., The callout received 715 reactions, 2,200 comments, and 215 shares. Carmen used the responses to inform the series content and to showcase the businesses nominated. By supporting Staffordshire’s local businesses, she contributed to one of the County Council’s core priorities: “support Staffordshire’s economy to grow”.

Encouraging children to read

Like many councils across the UK, Staffordshire has a mission to “Offer every Staffordshire child and young person the best start in life, and the chance to achieve their potential”.

Carmen’s “Summer Reading Challenge” campaign directly contributed to delivering on this priority. Her social media campaign embraced funny TikToks – but her strategy for this project was multi-channel. She created and ran weekly book quizzes on Instagram Stories, and filmed a “how-to” comedy sketch explaining the challenge.

Her results showed a marked improvement on the council’s 2024 campaign:

• 10,451 children signed up (versus 9,787 in 2024)
• 144,200 reach, 3,700 video views, 654 likes, 234 shares
• 115 quiz participants

Stellar social media event coverage

No stranger to early starts and very late finishes, Carmen has embraced social media coverage for some of Staffordshire’s iconic events: Staffordshire Day, and the internationally renowned triathlon. Thanks to her trailblazing events work, Carmen has rewritten the template for how Staffordshire covers major events.

Celebrating local pride for Staffordshire Day

As part of the event, Carmen secured Michelin-starred chef Niall Keating to recreate the iconic Staffordshire oatcake. She filmed TikToks using trending formats to showcase local attractions, and the results were outstanding:

• 75 episodes of media coverage (25% increase)
• 2,400 uses of #StaffordshireDay (10% increase)
• 300+ film festival submissions (25% increase)
• 2.15% engagement rate (on her first campaign!)

Game-changing coverage of Staffordshire triathlon

Carmen led live coverage of Ironman 70.3 Staffordshire, coordinating a detailed social media plan that ensured smooth content delivery throughout the day. Her leadership and planning were praised by senior leaders, and the campaign achieved:

• 1.88% engagement rate
• 109,600 reach
• 54 episodes of media coverage
• Positive sentiment, despite traffic disruption

By telling the stories of real people, Staffordshire Council achieved international engagement for its content, ensuring the county was celebrated on the world stage.

Out of the spotlight… yet shining bright

Carmen’s results speak for themselves. However, according to her team, her successes go way beyond the numbers. Carmen has truly shaped the way in which the council communicates with its community. And her people-first approach to council comms has built trust with local residents.

Carmen’s dedication shows in everything she does. She has worked through weekends, bank holidays, and even overnight on her birthday to deliver real-time updates during key moments for the council.

Carmen’s colleagues say that she’s appreciated not just by the council’s senior leaders, but also by team members across the council. She makes people feel confident on camera, even when they’re nervous, and always brings professionalism and warmth to every interaction.

Carmen doesn’t seek the spotlight, but she won a coveted Orlo Spotlight Award for being a true “behind-the-scenes” comms hero.

On awarding Carmen with this Spotlight Award, the judging panel said:

“The amount of content Carmen has done for Staffordshire is amazing, she’s helped rewrite the council’s playbook for event coverage and doubled their TikTok following. Her work has delivered impressive stats and helped build community pride as well as reshape how the council communicates”

On winning the award, Carmen said:

“I don’t think it’s quite sunk in, but I’m really proud and really chuffed to have won this award”

Congratulations to Carmen on your award – it’s so well-deserved!