We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Keke Powell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Keke below.

Hi Keke, thanks for joining us today. Going back to the beginning – how did you come up with the idea in the first place?

I got the idea during covid. I was thinking of creative ways to share my ideas, but also getting the supplies I needed to be successful as a teacher. As teachers, we don’t always get all the materials we need to bring the excitement to learning and making it fun! I wanted to use social media to help me with the out-of-pocket costs to do just that! At that time, I have a few educational influencers that I loved to get ideas from. So I asked my boyfriend Jeff, who is an Art Director (@missinglinkdesign), to design my own logo to start. I wanted to be a book character since I enjoyed reading a lot of books with my students. Then, I asked him to add my aloha spirit to my book character. This is how @mspowellteaches came to life. Jeff really brought my ideas to life and loved how my brand started to come alive!

I started partnering with different companies throughout the years during covid. I became a GoNoodle, Brainpop, Kahoot, Discovery Ed, Seesaw, and ClassDojo Ambassador. I really enjoy being an expert in all the programs that I use in my teaching practices. A lot of the content you see on my social media exactly what you would see me do in my classroom. It doesn’t feel like work and I enjoy inspiring other ideas to other educators. It’s super cool to see all the behind the scenes work from the educational programs.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

Since I was helping many other companies with their products, this led me to writing reviews for Yelp and Amazon! I have been a Yelp Elite for about 5 years now and I currently have over 165,000 people who have read my reviews! I absolutely love to travel to new places and I also love to eat! Since my social media has all the pictures of myself in them, then I decided to make all of my food reviews about Jeff. It really is a team effort because his voice plays a key role to my reviews. On Amazon, it all just started with writing my reviews with my Amazon purchases. Now I am part of program that allows me to just review the items as I wish.

I am most proud of my persistence to keep trying new things and seeing what else is out there. My best advice for someone is to keep believing what works best for you! I really enjoy this hobby on the side and it doesn’t feel like work for me.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

My best advice for people wanting to become a digital creator is make sure you don’t put all your time and effort to it. It’s a lot of work thinking about what content to create or wanting to make a reel. Find something that works for you, so that it doesn’t feel like work. Start small before going big. Make your page unique! I wanted to share more positivity on my page, so I created different jokes of the day! I love this because my students are always telling me jokes! They get amazed at me each time I tell them a joke right away back.

Next, start writing those reviews for your favorite business! It really helps them out and tag them on social media! It will make them feel good that they are getting noticed and may even invite you back for a collab!

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My goal has always been to inspire other educators. There are so many wonderful teachers that I have worked with and have some of the best ideas I have ever seen! We are losing so many teachers in education right now, so I really want to empower the ones we still have! It’s so important to be a positive light to others right now because I want to bring joy to the people I work with. I am so lucky to work with some of the best teachers on my grade level. They really do put their student needs first and love their positive energy!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mspowellteaches.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/mspowellteaches
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mspowellteaches/
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/mspowellteaches
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=migfpGCNBEnV3ntFNklOGQ
• Other: https://linktr.ee/mspowellteaches https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3HY664QQBD47Q?ref_=wl_share