Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Val Emanuel. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Val, appreciate you joining us today. Do you manage your own social media?
One of the things Rif Care gets the most compliments on is our social media channels. We do not have a huge following, but we do post regularly and the goal of our pages is to educate!
Right now the social media team has mostly been managed by me. I have had an assistant, but we need to raise money so we let her go and now I am managing myself!
The strategy is to do a shoot every few months, usually a big photoshoot once a year and then a smaller shoot or an iPhone shoot and then use UGC creators, who are always customers first, as we need content that is up to date! Doing shoots is fun, but you have to stay culturally relevant which is where creators can come in. We can send content ideas to them or have them come in for a day of doing content on whatever women’s health topics are trending at the moment!
We are still lacking a lot. I think I do a great job, but we need to make more infographics and also the Tiktok could use more attention!
Social media has also not been easy since womens health has some resections and sometimes our content has even been blocked and we have been shadow banned. We need help from someone at META to help us with being flagged so that Is currently what we are working on.
My biggest tip would be consistency. Even if your brand is pre launch, post at least 5 x a week and also lead people from your social post to your blog, website etc. Social media is for education, but also it is a sales tool and should be treated as such!
Val, 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?
Rif Care is a new period company that I started with my best friend Rebecca Caputo in late 2021 and we launched in June of 2022. The unique thing about Rif Care menstrual products is that we use hemp fiber in our products and we were the first company to launch commercially with this innovation. We make organic menstrual pads, period underwear that are PFA free and 100% organic tampons.
We launched into Erewhon in July of 2022 and after our success there we moved into other retailers! You can find us at MOMS Organic Market on the East Coast, and now Gelsons in SO CAL! We are now in 120 retail doors and you can find our entire retailer list on our site!
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
My co founder Rebecca and I met when we were 17 years old in Culver City. The funny thing is we were at a park at a picnic and we naturally gravitated towards each other. We learned that we both grew up around Venice Beach and we had crossed paths in so many ways!
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
Once you start growing retailers it gets hard to manage them. This is something we are working on! We are sending a buyer newsletter and we have a CRM with all info like what stores we have visited, given samples to and presented brand info and done staff meetings with. This helps us to know that everyone has been personally contacted and connected with!
Even as we grow, I want to try to continue to be this hands on with brokers, merchandisers and our Rif Care team!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.rifcare.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rifcare/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rifcares/?viewAsMember=true
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjJiJTV1pmGZkZuauuVuXLA
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@rifcare
Image Credits
randy Tizon, katy pritchett