We were lucky to catch up with Renée R. recently and have shared our conversation below.

Renée, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

My goal was to create an unapologetically Black space online for like minded individuals to learn, laugh, critique, grow and leave with a better understanding of themselves. There was a need for honest spaces where people can fully exist and feel safe in community without having to explain inside jokes, or cultural nuances to those outside the community. I knew this would work because i knew I wasn’t alone in my thinking and also because many other groups have these types of spaces designated for their cultural cultivation already. My approach is unique in that the curation of the posts are not bogged down with “mainstream” expectations, or a “mainstream” interpretation of what ‘The Culture” means. Authenticity is first and foremost and comes naturally since I am apart of the community I am catering to and building with. It excites me to create something bigger than myself and I’m grateful that the space has now grown to welcome 50,000 followers.

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?

I am the founder of a growing online community called BlackFirstLifestyle. In November of 2021, my love for my culture and people inspired me to create a place for both to be celebrated and nourished; a departure from how we are usually treated in this western society. BlackFirstLifestyle is our “Digital Knowledge Of Self Center” and a safe haven for Black folks to take off their shoes and get comfortable. We welcome the African Diaspora to follow, comment, and share our content to keep the celebration going world wide. Our analytics say that in addition to crossing state lines in the US we have also crossed countries and CONTINENTS like the UK and Africa! To say I’m grateful is an understatement. I was raised to be proud of my heritage and through out my life I have been able to express it on a smaller scale, but now being able to witness the growth and manifestation of my vision for my people at this level is the ultimate blessing that I will cherish forever.

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

CONSISTENCY, AUTHENTICITY, PASSION.

-Be consistent with your posts; To have a social media presence you have to be present. Make sure your community sees you and can gain something from what you’re showing them.

-Be authentic with your posts; Never do what’s popular or trending if it doesn’t fit the culture of your platform. Your community can sense if you’re being phony, and who wants to follow a phony?!

– Be passionate about your posts; There should be a real connection to the content you curate/create. It’s easier to post often when the topic is something you find easy to speak about or creatively ideate upon consistently.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Something I had to unlearn was reading too heavily into the comment section. It is still something I work on, but I have definitely found a nice balance and I am no longer overwhelmed.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @BlackFirstLifestyle