We were lucky to catch up with Samantha Buder recently and have shared our conversation below.

Samantha, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us the backstory behind how you came up with the idea?

I’ve always loved and collected perfume. I grew up loving all things makeup and beauty, and the way a scent can instantly bring back memories is so interesting to me. I had an idea to open up a retail store for perfume, home fragrance, and body care, but I didn’t know where to start. I knew I didn’t have much expertise or authority working with fragrance, other than collecting a few over the years, so I decided to start a social media page while I became more educated on the topic. I started out making fragrance reviews and recommendation videos, and slowly developed my own video style. My page ended up gaining traction very quickly, and I realized how passionate I was about the niche I had created for myself. Once brands started to reach out and hire me for advertisements, I found myself really enjoying the creative marketing side of things and decided to focus on content creation for other brands.

Samantha, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am originally from the D.C. area, and moved to Nashville, Tennessee to attend Belmont University in 2015. I graduated in 2019 with a business degree. While I was in school, I started as a freelance makeup artist working with musicians in the area. After 3 years of freelancing, the pandemic hit, and my makeup business wasn’t nearly as lucrative. I found myself scrolling through perfume TikTok for hours on end, and I became really passionate about fragrance. It inspired me to look into jobs working with perfume. With no luck, I started thinking about starting my own business venture with perfume, which is when I started my TikTok page. The transition from makeup artistry to content creator was surprisingly smooth, since I already had 3 years experience of being self employed. I fell in love with creating aesthetic content, both for fun, and for brands. My work includes matching perfume recommendations to people’s style or aesthetic. Considering my audience can’t smell the fragrances I talk about, my job is to describe them in a way that will allow them to experience the fragrance without actually smelling it. I do this by creating a collection of photos and videos that I feel captures the vibe of the fragrance, and match them to the featured scents to convey the experience of that fragrance. Since I have previous business and art experience, I am able to provide very high quality and professional video content, and I think that is what sets me apart from others.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Building my audience was a result of consistency in the quality of my videos, and paying attention to what my followers interacted with the most. If you are just starting to build your social media presence, my best advice is to create content you love. I know that’s cliche, but it is so easy to get burnt out on social media, especially with how unpredictable the algorithms can be. It’s important to create content you would be proud of, even if it doesn’t go viral. Pay attention to your own scrolling habits- what sort of hooks get you to stop and watch the video? What keeps you watching videos that are longer than 20 seconds? What kind of videos do you like within your own niche? Remember that you are your best market research.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I think every profession has value, but it can be difficult to know your worth when you freelance in a creative industry. Sometimes I feel like I play on my phone for a living, and that my work isn’t meaningful to others. Then I remember how big of a confidence boost I get when someone tells me I smell good, and I know others feel the same. My goal is to empower people with my content, and to help them find a fragrance that makes them feel like their best self. Perfume is such a fun tool to play around with different styles and alter egos, and it’s so rewarding knowing that my content helps give people confidence and makes them feel like their most beautiful selves.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @nectarnashville
• Other: TikTok: @nectarnashville