We recently connected with Imani Michelle and have shared our conversation below.

Imani, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

January 2020 was a low point for me (little did I know what was to come with the pandemic). I was stressed, consistently anxious, and perpetually sad in the months leading up to January. By the end of that month, I had had enough.

Something needed to change.

I started therapy for the first time in my life to try to heal and learn new and healthier habits. I journaled, meditated, and starting using affirmations to help manage the stress and anxiety. By this point, I was already sharing my planner on Instagram. Although I loved seeing photos of people’s planners and notebooks, I felt that there was a gap in the community. Where were the planner people that were actively pursuing new self-care habits?! I decided to start sharing how I use my planner in my self-care journey.

That’s how my brand was born.

Since then, I’ve been a huge advocate for getting organized and intentional with your self-care routines by using your planner and other stationery products (like sticky notes, notebooks, and more).

Imani, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I struggled early on in the beginning of my self-care journey. My therapist gave me homework and recommended new techniques and habits for me, but I just didn’t know where to begin or how to approach these habits.

Getting organized and intentional about my therapy “homework” and self-care habits gave me the tools I needed to stop the cycle of perpetual sadness and consistent anxiety to truly make strides in my self-care journey. Now, I create content and sell products that help people infuse intention and organization with self-care. From tips about tracking habits to practicing gratitude, my brand helps people make the changes needed to cultivate new habits and lead the life they want to live.

I’m very open with my community; we talk about the eight types of self-care and share habits and tips that work for us and some that don’t. We share about our self-care journey: our struggles, accomplishments, and next milestone. The goal is to cultivate a space where we come together to talk about intentional self-care and how we are healing, forming new habits, and taking on new challenges to be our best selves.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

It’s no secret that cultivating community is important when building a brand. Personally, I’m a huge advocate and believer in (1) an email list, (2) comments, and (3) direct messages. These avenues work really well for my brand and have allowed me to grow and connect with my community.

Regardless of the method(s) you use, I think the key is to be genuinely interested in conversation with your clients/community. This comes easy for me because I LOVE talking about planners and I’m constantly thinking about self-care. The tough part is TIMING. Building and growing a business is already hard enough but when you want to cultivate community and building loyalty, it’s even harder.

Know yourself and know your schedule to set time aside daily or every other day to focus on building community and fostering loyalty.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I love this question because I think it’s interesting!

If you’ve ever seen or scrolled past the planner community on social media, you know the most “aesthetic” planners usually get the most engagement and follows. Personally, I focused on capitalizing on my strengths and staying true to myself. Yes my planner layouts may grab my audience’s attention, but it’s the caption, the conversations, and the messages that keep them and grow the audience. It’s the authenticity and willingness to share (on certain topics of course) that helps me build my audience as well.

If you want to build your social media presence, I think it’s important to know your industry (e.g., what are your competitors doing and how do you want to stand apart? How can you add to the conversation?) and the audience you want to attract. Let that guide you as you create content and cultivate conversation.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theimanimichelle.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theimanimichelle
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@theimanimichelle
• Other: https://linktr.ee/theimanimichelle