We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mary Ralph Lawson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Mary Ralph, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you manage your own social media?

Social media has always been second nature for me – I organically gained my own following in high school and then started my own social media agency in college, so when Kennedy and I started Daily Drills, I was excited to make our social media accounts an exciting follow. Three years later, I am still running all of our social media accounts, with the help of an intern here and there. It just made sense for me to manage our socials, considering I have years of experience of building brands’ social media presence under my belt, and it stuck! But I truly do just enjoy it. Taking an idea in my head, bringing it to life in a photo shoot, and then sharing it with our followers is something that I’ll never get tired of.

If you’re thinking about whether to manage your own social media or hire someone else, I recommend going with what feels most natural to you and your business! For Daily Drills, Kennedy and I were both well-versed in social media, so it made sense for us to do it on our own. We also tend to pivot often and execute ideas quickly, so it’s nice to be able to immediately reflect those changes on our social channels. However, I have friends that are entrepreneurs and HATE social media, and they’ve found success using agencies! At the end of the day, your followers won’t be excited about your content if you’re not excited about posting it, so do what feels right for you.

Whether you choose to manage your own or outsource social media management, the most important thing is to be able to step away when you take time off. It’s obviously important to unplug from work every once in a while no matter what field you’re in, but unfortunately social media can be hard to step away from – considering it fits in the palm of your hand in the office AND on vacation. Having a set plan and a team member that can step up in times of need is crucial to finding balance!

Mary Ralph, 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?

My name is Mary Ralph Bradley and I was born and raised in Austin, Texas. My love for the beach originally brought me out to California where I attended Pepperdine University, but the fast-paced fashion of LA kept me here for good! From a young age, I’ve had an entrepreneurial energy – I would even bead necklaces and sell t-shirts to my friends on the playground! This translated to me organically growing my own social media presence, and later starting my own social media agency. Today, I’ve merged my entrepreneurial passion with my social media expertise as the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Daily Drills.

In the summer of 2020, my best friend, Kennedy Crichlow, approached me with an idea to start a clothing brand together. We always shared a love for fashion and were constantly bouncing ideas off of each other, so Daily Drills came together pretty quickly once we set our minds to it. A few months after Kennedy’s initial text, we launched our first collection and Daily Drills, the lifestyle apparel destination, was born! From sport to resort to lounge, our collections are full of everything that’s been missing from our closets. We’ve grown from the two of us packing orders in my tiny apartment into a full team with a headquarters in Los Angeles – not to mention the most dedicated community of shoppers that set alarms and create group texts for upcoming launches.

How did you build your audience on social media?

When launching Daily Drills, we decided to make our Instagram account private to create a buzz around the brand. Only our followers had access to shop our first ever collection, which made everyone want to follow, just to be “in the know.” I think giving our account an “exclusive” feel definitely encouraged more people to follow, even if they never intended to make a purchase – but once they followed, our lifestyle content made them stick around!

Kennedy and I each had personal followings, which definitely helped build up Daily Drills’ audience, but I think the biggest piece of advice for anyone just now starting to build a social media presence is to create content that resonates! People might buy a coffee at Starbucks every day, but never follow them on Instagram, and you want your accounts to capture an audience, even in-between buys. Whether that be through aesthetic content, surprise offerings, or educational insights, giving your audience something to look forward to seeing is key.

Any advice for managing a team?

Managing a team well 100% starts with the hiring process. Trust your gut and be picky right off the bat! Kennedy and I recognized early on that we don’t like having to constantly give someone direction, so we knew to hire self-starters and go-getters that would thrive in a hands-off environment. We’ve also been very intentional in hiring employees that are not only amazing at what they do, but get along with each other and have a positive mindset. We’ve been blessed with an incredible team that is excited to be at Daily Drills, which makes managing them an honor.

In terms of high morale, the exclamation point is the center of our branding, and also the way our team works – we put emphasis on everything that we do so that we can work hard and play hard, too! Our mission as a company is to make getting dressed fun, but we want to make work fun, as well. Kennedy and I love planning surprises for our team to show them how much we value all of their efforts, and something as simple as a happy hour or team lunch goes a long way. We also conduct monthly check-ins with each team member so that if anyone ever has something they need to talk to us about, we can have a conversation about it on the front end, rather than let it fester until it boils over. High morale is just a positive side effect of intentionally building up the people around you and making them feel seen, heard, and respected!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://shopdailydrills.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailydrills/, https://www.instagram.com/maryralph/

Image Credits
Lyle Nelson