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

Melissa, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Some of the most interesting parts of our journey emerge from areas where we believe something that most people in our industry do not – do you have something like that?

As a content creator, I started out just making ads for brands that they would use on their social media channels, and I was VERY reluctant to use the “I” word… influencer. I did this as a side hustle, and it grew beyond anything I could ever imagine. While many in Gen Z might aspire to become an influencer, and find it cool, for me it was a bit embarassing. So what I believe most people would disagree with is my stance on influencing. While I found it embarassing and borderline “cringe”, most (especially younger generations) find it cool. I will say, though, that I’ve gradually embraced the label, as transitioning from just making ad content to using my own social media channels to help brands promote their products truly is “influencing”, and it’s something I enjoy, as I only promote products that I truly believe in. Further, I’ve had the opportunity to help out many of my friends who are business owners, and that’s my favorite part of influencing.

Melissa, 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’m a university professor who specializes in management, although my bachelor’s degree is in marketing. To fulfill my love of and passion for marketing, I expanded my consulting business in 2022 to include content creation. Originally, I started exclusively helping brands sell their products by creating what’s called UGC, or user-generated content. This essentially refers to ads that I create that they, in turn, post on their company’s social media channels.

In the year and half since I started making UGC content, I have created over 2,000 ads for brands big and small, local and global. As my business grew, I had increasing demand from brands for me to not just make ads for them to use on their own social media channels, but to post on MY channels. I was relucant to do this, as I did not consider myself an “influencer”, but this was the next natural step in the progression to scale my business. Now I produce not just UGC, but I also engage in content creation in the form of influencing, including paid brand endorsements and ambassadorships. I love helping brands sell their products, and I have the luxury of only accepting jobs for products that I truly would endorse and that I feel confident associating my personal brand.

My favorite content to produce is that for small businesses owned by women and minorities, as well as nonprofit causes. I often take on these jobs on a pro bono basis, and love helping these organizations grow. It feels good to give back in this way, and use my skills and talents to help businesses in which I believe. For paying gigs, the great thing about hiring a UGC creator or micro-influencer, is that brands can get HUGE bang for their buck compared to traditional marketing channels. This type of promotion is surprisingly affordable, but can yield huge results. I have several campaigns that I’ve created that have resulted in millions of views on TikTok with massive engagement. To get this type of awareness through traditional channels would cost these businesses on the magnitude of 50-100x their spend on these campaigns.

Have you ever had to pivot?

For the majority of my career, I’ve held two jobs, and in 2022 I “retired” from nonprofit work after having served as Executive Director for a charitable cause simultaneously while being a university professor. My work/life balance was abysmal, and all I did was work. I was unable to enage in activities that bring me joy, such as travel. It was difficult and scary to lose half my income, so I had to pivot and think of a side hustle that would allow me to afford to do the things I wanted to do, now that I had the luxury of time. I’ve always had a consulting business, taking on management consulting jobs when approached by clients, but it wasn’t anything that I proactively pursued, as I certainly had very limited free time. Instead of gearing up and going hard with mangement consulting, I decided to try something different – yet exciting – which was to provide creative services in the form of UGC, which is user generated content, or social media ads. This was such a huge departure from what I had done my entire career, nonprofit management, but was an exciting new path that I’ve found rewarding and fulfilling.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

While I am a content creator, my primary job -and career- is university professor, with a specialty in management. I always believed that corporate America rewarded loyalty, and thought that most managers truly cared about their employees. The way that most organizations and managers handled the COVID pandemic, and threw people out like trash, really changed my viewpoint on this. It made me transition from the viewpoint of “work hard at all costs and sacrifice all for the sake of the company and my career” to a stance of “work to live, don’t live to work”. As a natural type A, highly conscientious person, I’ll always hustle hard with every task… that’s just who I am and how I’m wired. But I’ll never again sacrifice so much of myself — my time with friends and family, giving up things I love like travel, and my mental health, for the sake of a job… ANY job. I’ve had to unlearn my blind company loyalty and instead pivot to an approach of working hard, but putting myself and my happiness first.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.melissanewman.org
• Instagram: dr_melissa_newman
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-d-newman-mba-ph-d-838a87b
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ProfMelissa
• TikTok: @professormelissa

Image Credits
Leah Kelley Photography Gary Baker