Social media can be a really powerful way to connect with and build deeper relationships with your audience – but it can be extremely time consuming. So, we asked some folks we admire to share how they manage their social profiles and whether they’ve hired professionals to help.

Adan Avila

I manage my own social media because I truly am one of those people that believes that if you want something done right the first time, do it yourself. Especially for my brand, which is so personal to me. Even the foundation like the name, Ad’Ann is a combination of my mother’s middle name Ann and my name Adan. I am a very visual aesthetic oriented creative, I know the brand I want to portray and how I want it to be seen. The quality and luxury that come with custom clothing to the personal interaction of fittings and fabric sampling and displaying it in a single photo or a reel to the recent trends to doing the work and stringing ideas together with a visual aid. It’s honestly a little overwhelming especially with my degree and specialty being fashion design and construction to learning marketing by trial and error and evolving with the times and technology. I am happy I made the choice I made because I’ve learned and strengthen my own creative eye with a different creative outlet, to even taking my own photos of my editorials to post. It is an every enlightening process!!! Read more>>

Kristel Coronado

I manage my own Social Media accounts. In fairness, I only have a website, Facebook and Instagram. I do own this business part time behind my main Engineering Career, so I have made the decision to limit my reach on purpose. Within those accounts, I aim to reach to my target audience, which are mostly locals, rather than reaching out to those that will not ever buy an actual product. Read more>>

Anastasia Gardi

What’s the most effective approach for social media as a business owner? Can choosing the right approach really make much of a difference? I’m here to tell you that the answer is an irrefutable YES! As an independent business owner who has chosen to run my own media accounts- I can assure you the work is worth the reward. The digital age created revolutionary ways to connect with targeted audiences. So how will you take advantage of this powerful tool? This begs an important question to ask yourself when beginning any new entrepreneurial endeavor. Read more>>

Lauren Ryan

I manage my own social media. I struggle with this, but I haven’t found someone who can fully represent my voice and knows needlepoint. I try to be honest, There is a lot of aspirational and influencer marketing in our industry, and I try to balance humor with respect, slight snarkiness and a realistic portrayal of life. Read more>>

Marissa LaCome-Hernandez

I am currently managing my social media and have much room for improvement. Considering my passion is hair and makeup social media has never been my strong suit. I believe that hiring someone would help my business grow but also that running my own social media helps portray my most authentic self. I think in this industry it is important to always be growing and learning, otherwise, you may get left behind. I am working to hold myself accountable for creating content that my viewers will enjoy and sharing my work as often as possible. Creating beauty and capturing it are two different worlds and I am on a journey figuring out how to intertwine the two. Read more>>

Waqqas

I suck at social media, but for the time being I do run my own. I honestly don’t believe I’d even have social media if I didn’t make music, and can’t wait until the day I have someone/a team to at least help with me with it. I don’t necessarily need them to run the whole thing, but I’m not the best at keeping up with trends so it’d be nice to have someone assist with that. Social media is what keeps you relevant in today’s world, so the best tip I have for other business owners that are looking to take advantage of the tool is to stay proactive with it and essentially find what works for you via trial and error. Read more>>

Wileen Johnson

I manage my own social media /company and it has been very challenging but what I do is educate myself on how to market my brand . I chose to do so simply because it can be really hard trusting someone to help you build your brand or trust that their intentions are as pure as I am. It’s really a challenging job to have because it’s a lot to juggle. A lesson that I learned is to hire someone who has that same passion and drive for your brand as you do. It is very important to hire in areas that you are weak in so therefore ,I am looking forward in building me a dream team that can take my brand to the next level and bring my vision to life because it’s only so much that you can do on your own when you can actually hire a team or someone to help you acquire your goals with ease. Read more>>

Avery Albright

At Baked by Ave, I am the owner/CEO and am involved in all aspects of the business. I knew from my degree in Marketing that social media is imperative in today’s time and can either be immensely influential or detrimental to brand. It has been a major factor in our success. I determined my target market, who are other business owners looking for tips, as well as potential customers for my cakes in Atlanta. Before I was getting consistent orders, I would research current trends on major platforms like Instagram and TikTok. With that in mind, I would try to create new content every day. Now that I have daily orders, I am able to use those for videos. You don’t need the perfect product, lighting or set up, especially when you are just getting started, but you do need to have a plan. Decide on who you are making the content for. You will learn and perfect the details as you go along. Read more>>

Tony Metric

As a personal project in electronic music, I currently manage my social media to announce the release of my upcoming tracks, collaborations with other artists, or events where I will be performing. The social media platform I primarily use is Instagram because it allows me to connect more closely with my followers. I chose to manage it myself because people from different parts of the world message me to express their love for my music or tag me when they play my music at an event or have a proposal. I enjoy taking the time to personally respond to them and share the stories where they tag me. This has helped me build a solid fanbase with people around the world. Read more>>

Jasmine Smith

Currently, I manage my own social media accounts. However, in the past, I hired a VA and told her to post and engage on social media for me because it was a task I didn’t like doing in my business. I thought I could just hire somebody and they could figure it out for me and take that task off my radar. However, it resulted in me feeling like the VA wasn’t doing a good enough job and that she was wasting the hours that I paid for monthly. My intention was good to delegate the tasks that I didn’t excel in, but in order for it to be done effectively you still need a plan. And I didn’t have one. Read more>>