Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mikayla Hollrah. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Mikayla, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you manage your own social media?

I run and manage all of my business’s social media!

Before starting Proper Pet I was less than savvy managing my personal social media accounts. I knew social media could make a huge impact on my business and be incredibly beneficial for our overall growth. After all, social media has become so much more than just a place to socialize! I found that YouTube and Shopify had plenty of helpful resources and links to assist me in building my social media accounts and find customers that fit our niche. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some of the most incredible people and pets through social media! Knowing that we can engage and interact with fellow pet parents around the world is a literal dream come true.

Social media has made a huge difference for my business in so many ways! For example, we have an amazing team of brand ambassadors who have been incredibly supportive and helpful, almost all of who I met on Instagram! If I hadn’t involved my business in social media, I would’ve never had the opportunity to attain and accomplish so many of the milestones we’ve hit this past year.

Aside from marketing and making sales, social media has also given us the opportunity to build some great personal relationships with other brands and companies! We got invited to our first in-person event through social media and as a result it opened a door for us to get involved in more community events!

I’ve found that the easiest way to manage our social media platforms has been to make a monthly calendar of posts, product launches, sales, announcements etc. This way I’m able to keep track of everything in one place and have a record of what worked and what didn’t. This type of scheduling has really helped me immensely!

Mikayla, 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?

Hi, my name is Mikayla! I’m 23 years old and I’m the owner of Proper Pet.

I started creating hand stamped pet tags in 2019 for my own pets and my passion grew from there! I wanted to make unique pet tags that embodied the personality of people’s pets while also making them durable and affordable! Since starting my business in 2021 I’ve made tags for pets all throughout the United States. This last year we’ve expanded to making paw balms, necklaces, keychains, stickers, dog shampoo bars and more!

I’ve worked with animals for over 10 years and along the way I’ve learned how important it is to make sure your pet is chipped, tagged, or both! Accidents happen and pets go missing every day. My goal is to help reunite beloved pets back to their families and build pet identification awareness!

How did you build your audience on social media?

When it comes to building an audience on social media, I’ve had the most success with being genuine and engaging with my followers! I love to follow up with customers and share photos and videos of them with our products. Just being friendly can go a long way!

I often time have our followers vote on new product designs and include them in our decisions. I enjoy asking our followers for their opinions and coming up with questions to help learn more about them! This also guides me to see what they are looking for from us and how we can improve.

Another thing that has helped me bond with followers and build relationships is getting personal! Ive found that putting a face to my brand and sharing details about myself has helped me gain trust and become more approachable. I strive to build friendships with my customers! Engaging with my followers posts, stories, reels etc also help me to build strong bonds. Overall my advice to anyone just starting to build their social media presence is just to be kind and be yourself!

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I was working three jobs between two pet boarding facilities and a dog walking gig when I abruptly started having seizures. After a few doctors appointments my driver’s license was revoked and shortly after losing my license I had no choice but to resign from my jobs. This all felt incredibly unfair and inconvenient as I loved working with animals and needed a way to financially support myself. It wasn’t long before I started making a plan to start a business that I could work from home. I knew I wanted to continue working with pets and as soon as a fell in love with metal stamping I just knew that was it! I researched everything I could about starting a business, practiced my stamping, and set up a plan. Thus Proper Pet was born! We launched October 23rd of 2021 and I haven’t looked back since!🤍

Contact Info:

• Website: https://properpettags.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/proper.pet/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/100075759198543/