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How These Entrepreneurs Made Millions Exclusively on Social Media

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Social media is a must for any business looking to get off the ground and sometimes it’s the first stop before opening brick and mortar or launching a website. Social media has made it easier to get to more customers fast — with Facebook ads and subscription groups, Instagram shopping, What’s App checkout and more helping brands go from local to global. Bottom line: There are many ways to monetize your talents without having to literally open shop. Here are a few inspiring entrepreneurs who got their start on social media — and how you can too.

Get Behind a Purpose

Three months before launch, the sisters behind LA-based fashion brand Doen, Margaret and Katherine Kleveland, took their brand to social media with shot-on-film, vintage-inspired photography and luxe, modern, boho dresses and blouses any woman would covet, and word-of-month spread fast. Through DMs and tags, the brand grew organically (and internationally) and their mission of female empowerment — a women-run fashion business with women-run factories in a male-led industry — became a story to tell. Three months later, at launch time, they were featured in the NY Times’ T Magazine.

“We use our social media platforms to hear from and engage with our customers in order to know what people are loving, how items are fitting, thoughts on fabric and so on. It’s important for us to be open with our customers and it’s allowed us to build trust with our community. Our customer knows they can email or message us online and receive a quick yet personal response,” they told Harper’s Bazaar UK last May. Last summer the direct-to-consumer brand partnered up with Net-a-Porter and recently opened shop in Brentwood, nearly five years after launch.

Partner Up

What started as a social action campaign for International Women’s Day in 2017 became a powerful digital movement that has impacted countless women and girls worldwide. Meena Harris, founder of the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign, used her super skills in grassroots organizing (she is the niece of Senator Kamala Harris and was an organizer for Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign) to sell ‘Phenomenal Woman’ T-shirts that would benefit causes close to her heart: educational and healthcare equity; criminal justice reform; gender parity in STEM; reproductive health; and political representation. She talks about how she used digital platforms to spread the word by partnering with several non-profit beneficiaries, getting celeb support (strategically) and thinking like an entrepreneur to grow in this Vogue Australia article. The fundraising initiative has since raised money for the organizations such as Girls Who Code, the United State of Women, the Essie Justice Group, Families Belong Together, Planned Parenthood, Native Voices Rising and the Dr. Maya Angelou Foundation.

Be an Original

Self-taught artist Jenna Rainey inspired a major watercolor comeback when she started posting time-lapse videos of her bright and colorful floral strokes in 2013. Her refreshingly down-to-earth and quirky personality helped define her brand and her willingness to share how she does it through online tutorials and workshops turned her hobby into a global creative powerhouse. She started up her own design studio in Southern California and became the best-selling author of a series of watercolor books. She’s also a YouTuber, host to several online courses (including three for Brit + Co), and licenses her art to brands like Target, Staples and Papyrus. She shares her licensing secrets in her popular Brand + Brand course.

Turn Followers Into Shoppers

Natalie Ellis and Dr. Danielle Canty, cofounders of BossBabe, a community for women in business, started out posting ambitious quotes on Instagram and turned it into a multimillion-dollar business. How? By cultivating their follower’s buying power. Ellis lays out her secrets to making the most of selling on Instagram stories and Facebook (“Don’t make your audience jump through hoops to buy from you”) in this Fast Company article.

Break Your Industry’s Mold

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I have pink and purple hair! 💜💕💜💕 The other day I realized how different my life is than most people’s now. It didn’t used to be that way. It was such a slow transition that I didn’t even realize it had separated from the norm so much. I’m about to talk about money and if that’s uncomfortable for you, it’s time for you to scroll on. One day Michael and I had finally earned what we inappropriately call, “f@€K you money” (OMG I said it and tell me you watch Billions). That’s the amount it would take for you (specifically you, we are all different), to have enough money to live outside of the social norm — in whatever way brings you the most joy and fulfillment. To be able to use your money to no longer conform to what others want from you. And, dang if it isn’t expensive. Living outside the norm is NOT what most people do so it will invite the worst of others insecurities to come and play. It’s not what our government or society wants because people with their own ideas for their life don’t conform. Make no mistake, it costs money. And I, personally, love that M and I earned it for our family. Yep. I’m going here, too. We earned every single dollar and there’s not a thing that the people who tried to stop us can do about it. Not the people who hurt us in our past. Not those that wish us ill now. That success and mindset are ours to build on. We use our money to provide a lifestyle that feels like pink and purple hair in a blonde and brunette world. Our life looks insane to a lot of people. The way we live makes some (a lot) uncomfortable. We don’t send our kids to school like normal families. We don’t have a stay-at-home parent like normal. We don’t spend or invest like normal people. We don’t make choices based on normal criteria. It looks insane if you don’t know us and what we want out of our life. To us, though, it feels like bliss…even when it doesn’t. So here’s to being a physical representation of how I feel. I reject normal. I resist (not in the modern feminist way, let’s get that straight). If you’re made to stand out, it’s probably about time that you start. Stop wasting your life living by a standard you didn’t choose

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Lindsay Teague Moreno built a seven-figure income selling Young Living Essential oils using only social media (with three little ones at home) and now her sales are projected to bring in $250 million this year. She is the author of the best-selling book Getting Noticed, a road map for building a business from scratch and has a new book Boss Up! coming out in May. In this video on Entrepreneur she talks about how she broke from the mold when it came to selling essential oils in an industry that needed a refresh.

Behold the Trust Factor

Jenna Kutcher traded her corporate job as a health-and-wellness leader at Target to pursue a passion for photography. After running a wedding photog gig, she moved on to teaching others how to set up a photography business and how to market their business via email and social media. Her digital marketing know-how, never straying from her niche audience, and talking with brutal honesty on social (her heartfelt response to a body-shaming troll after she suffered a miscarriage went viral and her following grew 5Xs). A podcast, courses, and an online shop later, Jenna Kutcher LLC was projected to make $5.5 million in revenue last year.

When Algorithms Change, Try Good Old-Fashioned Email

Emily Ley, founder of the super-popular Simplified Planner, grew her Etsy audience by sharing her products and her personal story on Facebook and Twitter in 2008. She has since grown to 250,000 Instagram followers, 65,000 Facebook fans, and 10,000 Twitter followers but growing an organic audience online (as we all know) has become a challenge. “Social media algorithms have changed, so you don’t always show up in someone’s feed, but if you have someone’s email address, you will always show up in their inbox,” she told Inc. She uses MailChimp to automate her newsletters and set up a monthly coaching program with tips to help customers organize their lives. The win? It has shown to turn one-time customers into forever fans.

Have a social media success story to share? Tell us @BritandCo!

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The best social media hacks to blow up your following in just a year

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The best social media hacks to blow up your following in just a year

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Get viral fast. Plus more social media hacks to grow your accounts.

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X Pitches Advertisers on Audience Reach Opportunities in ‘Q5’

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X Pitches Advertisers on Audience Reach Opportunities in ‘Q5’

X is making a push to win over advertisers in the holiday season, by promoting its opportunities in “Q5”, which covers the post-Christmas to mid-January period.

As explained by X:

During [Q5], we see reduced CPMs and cost-per-conversion as consumers shop for post-holiday deals and products to support their New Year’s ambitions. Last year, X saw a 5% reduction in the average CPM and a 27% reduction in the average cost-per-conversion1.

Which could present new opportunity to reach a larger audience with your promotions, if indeed they are engaging on X over the holiday period.

“Q5 is filled with a wide variety of tent-pole moments, ranging from the holidays to sports, entertainment and more. With a surge of engagement around these conversations, your brand can remain relevant to your audiences while driving maximum ROI.

X says that, based on engagement data from last year, there are a lot of potential topics of interest for brands.

X also notes that sports video views are surging in the app, up almost 25% YoY over the past 6 months, while vertical video is also gaining momentum.

“Vertical video is the fastest growing surface on X. Over 100M people around the world are consuming vertical video daily at an average of over 13 minutes per day. On many days, vertical video accounts for around 20% of all time spent on the platform.

Though I would advise some caution in trusting these data points.

In recent months, various questions have been raised as to what X counts as a video “view” versus an impression, which is when a post is shown in-feed.

Technically, X counts video views like this:

“The main X video view metric is triggered when a user watches a video for at least 2 seconds and sees at least 50% of the video player in-view. This applies to View metrics for both uploaded videos and live broadcasts.

But that’s different to the actual view count that’s displayed on posts:

“Anyone who is logged into X who views a post counts as a view, regardless of where they see the post (e.g. Home, Search, Profiles, etc.) or whether or not they follow the author. If you’re the author, looking at your own post also counts as a view.

Even worse, X counts multiple views from the same person in that count:

“Multiple views may be counted if you view a post more than once, but not all views are unique. For example, you could look at a post on web and then on your phone, and that would count as two views.

So you can see how the public view count on video posts can massively overstate how many people actually watched a clip, which could be why X is reporting such big spikes in engagement. It just depends on which “view” metric it’s referring to here, actual views or exposure in stream.

Which makes all of these numbers a little difficult to determine, while X owner Elon Musk and CEO Linda Yaccarino have also continued to amplify misleading engagement stats via their own X profiles, muddying the waters as to what kind of actual reach and engagement you can expect.

And that’s before you consider the concerns that other advertisers have had with their promotions potentially being displayed alongside harmful or offensive content in the app.

But depending on how you feel about these aspects, and where your target audience is active, it could be worth considering X for your post-holiday promotions, as you look to maximize sales activity over the holiday period.

It’s also worth considering that with fewer big-name brands taking prime spots in the app, there may also be additional opportunity to reach people via X promotions.

There may be value, depending on your strategic thinking, though I would be keeping an eye on actual engagement

You can read more of X’s Q5 insights here.



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Gaza and Instagram make an explosive mix in Hollywood

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Gal Gadot regularly posts demands for the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza

Gal Gadot regularly posts demands for the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza – Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File Drew Angerer

Audrey Pilon-Topkara

Hollywood celebrities are paying the price for taking sides in the Gaza war — plastering their social media accounts with slogans such as “Free Palestine” or “I stand with Israel”.

Israeli actress Gal Gadot, best known for starring in “Wonder Woman”, has expressed unyielding support for her country since October 7, when Hamas fighters burst out of Gaza, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 hostage, according to Israeli officials.

“I stand with Israel, you should too,” she declared to her 109 million Instagram followers.

She has continued to regularly publish or share posts demanding that Hamas release the civilians it is holding — earning her both approval and criticism.

“While you’re at it, can you use your platform to share all the missing and killed innocent Palestinians too?” a user on X, formerly Twitter, wrote in response to one of her posts.

In reprisal for the October 7 attacks, Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip and launched a ground invasion, killing more than 17,000 people, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas government.

The Instagram account of American model Gigi Hadid, who is of Palestinian descent and followed by 79 million, has spent less attention on fashion in recent weeks.

She cited the “systemic mistreatment of the Palestinian people by the government of Israel”.

“Stop spreading lies. You and your sisters are antisemitic,” said one comment, with many others expressing similar views.

Famous stars can generate equally strong admiration and repulsion from the public, especially if they comment on divisive issues.

Well before social media, boxer Muhammad Ali, the actor Jane Fonda and singer Bob Dylan were adored or hated over their opposition to the Vietnam War.

More recently the actors Ben Stiller, Angelina Jolie and Sean Penn showed their support for Ukraine by visiting the country, in moves that were approved by most of their Western fans.

– Insults –

But the Israel-Palestinian issue is more divisive than most, exposing celebrities to even fiercer backlashes.

Kylie Jenner, the half-sister of socialite Kim Kardashian, shared a pro-Israeli post with her 399 million Instagram followers shortly after October 7, which according to US media she deleted an hour later after being hit with insults.

The Oscar-winning actor Susan Sarandon was dropped by her talent agency in November for comments she made at a pro-Palestinian rally, for which she later apologised.

Melissa Barrera, star of the fifth and sixth instalments of the “Scream” franchise, was cut from the cast of the seventh by the producers, who said they had “zero tolerance for anti-Semitism and incitement to hatred”.

The Mexican had denounced what she called “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza.

Celebrities who take sides in the conflict have “a lot to lose and little to gain”, said Nicolas Vanderbiest, founder of the public relations firm Saper Vedere in Brussels.

Producers and sponsors have little appetite for mixing geopolitics and business, he said.

In this issue, two “extremely organised” communities are on the lookout, creating a “herd affect”, Vanderbiest added.

Tom Cruise prevented his own agent from losing her job after she had referred to “genocide” on her Instagram account, according to the cinema trade press.

Celebrities could just stay quiet, but with this conflict there is “pressure to pronounce” and no immunity from criticism, said Jamil Jean-Marc Dakhlia, a professor of information and communication at Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris.

“Silence is seen as taking a position,” Dakhlia said. “So we are in a situation where you are forced to take sides, and not necessarily with much nuance.”

American singer and actor Selena Gomez, with 429 million Instagram followers, has been criticised for not taking a stronger stance on the issue.

Along with hundreds of others, including Hadid, singer Jennifer Lopez and actor Joaquin Phoenix, she took a middle road, signing a petition calling for a ceasefire and the safe release of hostages.

Earlier, hundreds of celebrities, including Gadot, had signed an open letter thanking US President Joe Biden for supporting “the Jewish people” and calling for the release of all hostages held by Hamas.

Very few signed both.

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