We recently connected with Shae Shakur and have shared our conversation below.
Shae, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
My mission is to provide my audience an experience. Bringing them that overwhelming nostalgia, while enjoying timeless trends and fashions from the 90s and 2000s. Educating others on Urban Culture, and how many black creators from the past that trail blazed for others creators today.
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?
Hello! My name is Shae Shakur and I am an entrepreneur and content creator. Growing up, I’ve always had an interest in creativity. Whether it was graphics, video editing, or just overall art. I’ve always felt I had potential to become an leader, or my own boss as a kid.
Before becoming an entrepreneur, I first started as an creator on Youtube back in the summer of 2016. I initially branded myself as, Shae Shakur, The Urban Teen Goddess. In effort to target black teenage girls, I’ve created content such as styling your hair on a budget, relatable story-times, and overall topics that I felt as though would be helpful for black teen girls.
Transitioning from an teen to a mother, It was time for me to expand my brand. It took up to 4 years of brand development and research before I actually launched my business in 2021. My business Urban Beauty Avenue.caters to young black girls who carelessly live in the 1990’s or 2000s. Providing clean vegan cosmetics, jewelry, and fashion to restore our inner child and nostalgia.
My consistency and faith was what helped me in reaching my goals. Some days would be worst than others, but me remaining to keep going, I was able to enjoy my own journey and enjoy the growth that I was making. Through my works and products, I want my potential customers to know despite the world being dark at times, their always something to be happy about. My products allows our customers to take a trip down memory lane shopping at the Ave,
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
It took years for me to build an engaging audience on social media. Starting with Youtube, I’ve had an set schedule on when I was uploading. Which helped a lot, as my followers would always look out for the new uploads and would expect the uploads.
Chatting and engaging with my followers also allows me to be more personable with my audience. Allowing them to see that I’m just like them, and that I do see their support. Sometimes adding polls on your instagram will help, allowing your followers to have an hand in the type of content that you create.
Business wise, Promoting your business at least a month or months prior, will buy you time to build an email or sms list, and hype around your business. Running ads on social networks helps also. However, once you get over the fear of promoting yourself, the audience will come.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
A lesson that I had to unlearn is consistency is the major key to growing. Which is true in aspect of growing a following on social media, but quality content always trumps quantity. I’ve had a time where I was overwhelmed with an work load of planning content for my business, and editing an youtube video.
Just uploading content, and not creating catching captions or brilliant marketing material, my sales took a decrease, as my followers was not engaging with the content, nor was I getting an traffic to my website.
With that loss, there was also an win. I learned and saw what worked and what didn’t. Taking the time to actually produce quality work will provide you with the audience that you want.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.urbanbeauave.com
- Instagram: Urbanbeauave
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/urbanbeauave
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@ShaeShakur
Image Credits
@shaeshakur @jaliyahnextdoor_ @_.essynce._ @90s.honnie @wyd.janae