We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ashley Moore a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ashley, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you have any thoughts about how to create a more inclusive workplace?

At seven years old, I was in an automobile accident that left me paralyzed from the neck down and dependent on a ventilator 24/7. Using great determination, I graduated high school on time with honors. I chose passion over practicality when I decided to get my Bachelor’s degree in Film and Master’s in Creative Writing from Full Sail University. A conviction to prove my ability to create quality material led me to work on as many projects as my fellow alumni without any special treatment for my physical disability.

My first job was with a research organization funded by the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine, called The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, working under the Director of Major Gifts, Corporate Relations, Marketing, and Events. I experienced my first taste of content creation by writing advice articles for their newsletters and producing promotional content for fundraisers, silent auctions, and letters to potential sponsors. Everyone, both physically able and disabled, was given the same opportunity. in this job

After three years, marriage and a second income allowed me to graciously leave my first job to stay home and work on a novel. However, an unexpected divorce thrust me back into the job market two years later.

Using my experience raising money and promoting queries for sponsorships and donors, I decided to apply to entry-level marketing positions. Even though I have anxiety, I found myself talking more freely than ever before and gaining more confidence in how I described my work ethic. Despite my qualifying background, professional appearance, and enthusiastic attitude, I was never contacted by a single agency. I even knew of other applicants with similar experiences who received positions. At that moment, I fully understood the term “equal opportunity.”

Now, I am a contractor for the social media management firm My Social Lady. Their goal to empower women to become social media managers who create engaging content and successfully manage accounts inspires me. This year, I started freelance services to create print, digital, and web designs for individuals, small businesses, and their brands called Moore Creative Designs to one day do the same for disabled jobseekers.

Although my brand is relatively new, my mission is to cultivate an inclusive working environment for the physically able and disabled, working together to design artistically unique paper or digital designs and websites for individuals and small businesses.

Ashley, 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 became a creative after finding an oasis from the difficulties of my disabilities in films and daydreams during primary school, which led to my imagination developing storylines and characters. I planned to use my infatuation with the written word as a way to tell meaningful stories about the world’s misfits and artistically minded individuals. I decided to pursue a career in writing. My original goal was to become a screenwriter and watch the character-driven storylines I loved creating come to life through the performances of talented actors I adore and unfold on camera.

After several jobs gaining experience in technical writing, I went through the courses offered by a social media management firm, My Social Lady, and earned my certification in mid-2020. Over the past two years as a social media strategist and writing consultant for several small businesses throughout Florida, I gained experience designing promotional content to expand their brand’s reach. I fell in love with the graphic design and web creation aspects of my social media job, which led to creating my brand, initially called Wild4Words. Now, I offer print design, digital design, web design, and brand graphic and document design services through Moore Creative Designs, the finalized name of my company.

My quality of determination and attention to detail will bring whatever you have in mind into reality. Although there are many design programs, few people are willing to invent their own for printed items. I can do this for my customers at a much lower price and with more care than a large graphic design company because I work one-on-one with the individual.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Supportive parents and fairytales teach children to “Follow Your Dreams.” I know I was taught this lesson as a child. After high school, I firmly believed my dream was to join the entertainment industry as a screenwriter. My love for cinematic art and my passion for writing stories drove me to this conclusion. Thinking I should follow my dreams, I attended a private entertainment college, earning a film and creative writing degree. After earning my graduate degree, I realized I needed to unlearn the lesson “follow your dreams” and add to it instead.

Although I was able to complete two spec scripts within six months after graduating, my physical limitations made it difficult for me to network with various people in an extensive range of places. On top of that, I used to be quite shy and had difficulty pushing myself to approach people who could get me closer to having my screenplays read by industry professionals. I eventually shaped my expectations around the limitations my disability causes, like my inability to relocate away from the assistance of my family, which led me to pursue a writing career in more of a field.

Learning a new lesson to “follow your dreams without sacrificing your health,” I am grateful to have pivoted as a writer. My career path eventually led to learning how to effectively be a social media manager, which showed me how much I love graphic and web design. In the end, the event of learning a famous mantra for children gave me the experience to start my brand doing what I love to do.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

As a social media manager, I often use my personal Instagram and Facebook profiles to test different methods one can use to grow an audience. As I began to think of myself as a brand like my clients, similar to an influencer, I learned that three things, audience, consistency, and keywords, make a big difference in helping to build a social media presence.

Marketing agencies often have target audiences. So, as I began to increase my social media presence, I asked myself, “Who am I trying to connect with?” With my new brand’s mission to create a more inclusive work environment for disabled creatives, I decided to target anyone with any physical disability.

Commitment to posting content was always essential when growing a social media presence, but posting more often with more consistency increases the number of people viewing my pages. For example, I once partook in an Instagram influencer challenge. By publishing stories on Instagram every day for two weeks straight, using prompts provided by the influencer holding the challenge, I quickly grew my following.

Finally, a significant component of building my client’s brand following involves search engine optimization (SEO), or as Google describes it, “the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines.” Social media uses hashtags, or as bigcommerce.com describes it, “the usage of the pound or number symbol, “#,” to mark a keyword or topic,” to promote profiles on different search engines. Similarly, keywords affiliated with a brand’s industry are applied to their website settings to increase SEO.

My advice for building a social media presence involves walking down a target audience, consistently posting content, and using keywords, or in some cases, hashtags, to promote your profile on search engines.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.moorecreativedesigns.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quirky_quad_ash/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quirky.quad.ash/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/quirky1quadriplegic/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quirky_QuadAsh