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

Maliyah, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

My jewelry line Kalua Rae was originally called Maliyah Rae (my name). However, in 2017 I took the opportunity to rebrand my line for my senior Fashion Marketing project at Savannah College of Art & Design. Kalua comes from the Hawaiian word meaning second child. I am the middle child of two sisters. I wanted to keep the island theme because my name Maliyah (spelled Malia) is Hawaiian for Mary, which is my grandmothers name. Rae is my middle name. I love how the two words flow together.

Maliyah, 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?

Created by jeweler Maliyah Mayfield, Kalua Rae is an E-Commerce jewelry boutique that is dedicated to making women feel beautiful and free through a collection of dainty jewelry. The tagline for the company is “Handcrafted Jewelry for the Wandering Soul”, and the company coined the term for their style, “Minimalist with a Bohemian twist”. Valuing the intimate touch of handcrafted jewelry, Kalua Rae dedicates every item to women who love an unique piece of jewelry in their collection. The company value’s diversity and love and welcomes everyone to join the tribe.

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

Social media has been a huge aspect to running my business. One thing I’ve learned is that you just stay consistent. People are looking at hundreds of different brands, images, people daily that they will forget about you if you don’t constantly remind them. It may seem like a lot of work, but planning your posts and/or photos ahead of time will really help you save time. Also, collaborating with small influencers and other like-minded brands have also helped grow my social media audience.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

One of my most successful marketing stories is when the pandemic hit in 2020 and I had a lot of spare time to create new jewelry. I launched my crystal waist bead line and they were extremely popular at the time. I worked with popular influencers to help promote my items, and it help generate many sales. It was a success because most of the influencers genuinely liked my products so it did not cost me much to send and pay for promotions.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kaluarae.com
• Instagram: @KaluaRae
• Facebook: Kalua Rae Boutique

Image Credits
@mahalostudios