We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nicole Oliva a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Nicole thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?

Ever since high school, I’ve loved photography, but it wasn’t until college that I actually started taking it seriously. During my college years, I decided to switch majors from Biology to Marketing so I could have a career where I can unleash my creativity and still make a decent income.

During college, I had a Social Media Management job for about two years with a local medical spa where I had the chance to put what I was learning into practice. Once I graduated, I took action and started acquiring new social media management and commercial photography clients until I was able to leave my 9-5 and start my own business.

I now have my own business, Noliva Visuals LLC, which is a social media creative agency that is specialized in content creation, photography, and social media marketing.

The process of legally forming my business was extremely difficult. I had no idea what I was doing and who to talk to, but luckily I met an amazing mentor during college that helped me set up my business the right way last year. Last year I dedicated myself to creating my ideal brand so I can work with my dream clients. This consisted of lots of research, hiring help, and lots of late nights working. My business still isn’t perfect, but it’s running better than I could’ve ever imagined.

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 back background and context?

As mentioned, I got into this industry during my college years when I worked as a social media manager for a local medical spa. I realized during my time there that I truly love what I do. I adore creating content, coming up with ideas and executing them, and best of all, seeing results from the content I create.

I offer social media management, social media strategies, content creation, commercial photography, and social media consulting. My ultimate goal is to ensure my clients use social media effectively, and in order to do so, you need to either do the hard work or hire someone to do it for you. Social media is about connecting and showcasing your brand in a light that’ll get your dream customers to interact with you, and eventually purchase from you. You need to show up. I’m proud to say I’ve had great success with my clients, I’ve been able to grow their audience, have helped them increase bookings and sales with strategic content, and have motivated them to show up online.

I think what sets me apart from others is that I’m doing the work. I want my audience to know that they aren’t hiring my business and having their work done by others with the expectation that it’ll be done by me. It is done by me. I am using my years of experience and skills to effectively help businesses build brand awareness with strategic social media strategies, content, and on-brand visuals. I’m extremely proud of my growth as a business owner and of how my work has improved in the past year.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is seeing my clients’ reactions to the photos and content that I’ve created and seeing that content performs well on social media.

Most of my clients’ come to me completely lost. They’re shy on camera, don’t know anything about social media marketing, and are looking to me to help them grow their business. I love helping them show up confidently on camera. Social media is about connecting and whether you have a social media manager or not, your audience needs to get to know YOU, the business owner, the one who brought it to life.

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

There are so many resources I’ve slowly started using throughout the years, and they’ve all been game-changers in my business as I’ve grown.

Canva is probably my most used website, I literally use it every day, and I discovered it a few years ago, but wish I had learned about it sooner. Notion is another great app/website that makes planning a breeze, I use this to plan content, for budgeting, write video scripts, and so much more. Honeybook is also another great website for those who offer service-based businesses. It’s a client management system that has contracts, invoices, proposals, scheduling, and more.

My most recently discovered website is called Milanote. This website has changed my pre-production process for photography completely! I love it because I can create beautiful mood boards with notes, photos, and checklists, and my clients can review them and even add comments to them as well.

I highly recommend trying all of these applications if you’re a creator or business owner.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nolivavisuals.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nolivavisuals/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nolivavisuals
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-oliva-9b604015a/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/nolivavisuals
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHMi9424KM2trqVqm5yInNw

Image Credits
Nicole Oliva