Today we’d like to introduce you to Carly Stein.
Hi Carly, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
As a young millennial in the early days of Instagram filters, I was a student at Colorado State University with a slight idea of where I wanted to be in my future career. Thinking I eventually wanted to work for a magazine as an editor or work in the fashion industry doing marketing, I majored in Communications & Media Studies with a Minor in Fashion. At the time, I had no idea that Social Media was going to be the modern-day tool for marketing and advertising, essentially becoming the “modern magazine”. While in college I got accepted into an application-only class where only 50 of 500 applicants were accepted to put on the Colorado State University Fashion Show for the School of Fashion. Being a Communications & Media major I was the “Publicity and Promotions Coordinator” for the School of Fashion which essentially meant at the time – Social Media Manager and PR Coordinator. There, I began paving my own means of utilizing a new platform to elevate marketing for the Fashion School and the designers and found a passion for Social Media Marketing and Public Relations. Eventually, I moved back home to San Diego to intern at a very prominent Public Relations agency in downtown. There, I developed my love for content strategy and building reputable brands. However, I quickly realized that Public Relations writing was not my passion and my heart lied in the creative branding side of building a business.
Soon, I found a niche for implementing modern trends into a strong digital presence. I decided it was time to truly embrace the term “millennial” and merge it with my eye for unique design aesthetics, brand strategies, and elevated creativity. After being in and out of multiple creative agencies working as a Social Media Account Executive & Content Strategist, I met my current business partner, Victoria Gonzales. While working in an agency together, leading the department on staying up with the ever-evolving Social Media, Victoria and I instantly had an undeniable connection. As the original pioneers of social media marketing, we both developed an incredible bond through our identical passion for branding, drive for business and vision for uniqueness. After hundreds of hours working together on building brand strategies, we realized that our balance of skill sets blended the perfect cocktail for a successful creative agency. That is when Social Elixir Creative was born.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
In my early years after graduation, I began freelancing around North County San Diego for many local boutiques, businesses, and influencers. At the time I was a one-woman show doing everything from photography, graphic design, brand strategy, business development, social media management, and public relations all in one. Soon, I found myself overwhelmed with the connections and referrals I was receiving, but it became tough to navigate how to properly price myself as a business, as I was still in my earlier years of experience. As a result, I was pricing myself so low, I ended up having to compensate with more clients which ultimately left me hitting a wall and burning myself out from freelancing. Luckily, going back into the agency, I was able to experience how a Social Media Agency structures a business and the interworking’s of client management. Now, having a business partner like Victoria has completely transformed our ability to create a business structure together as we have a combined skill set that equally balances each other.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Social Elixir Creative?
Social Elixir Creative is a full-service creative marketing agency in sunny San Diego, CA specializing in building up powerful brands that push beyond the noise through unique digital initiatives. Specializing in Social Media, Content Creation, Brand Strategy, Digital Marketing, Graphic Design, Web Development, Photography, and Influencer Relations. The Social Elixir Creative team prides itself on being an extension of your marketing team as we align with your brand vision and goals with unique content strategies that will achieve them. With 24/hour customer service, we love building true connections with our clients to have a deeper understanding of their vision, values, and goals. Victoria and Carly are your millennial team leads that hand-craft every account to reach and convert target audiences through an unmatched understanding of consumer trends in the digital world with an ROI-centric growth strategy.
As a two-woman team, our agency stands out each as each client directly corresponds with both Victoria and Carly instead of being assigned a random account executive. As a result, we absolutely love our relationships with our clients as we meet them for happy hours, have weekly brainstorming sessions, and create an atmosphere of comfortability for continuous free-flowing creativity. Let us do the hard work of promoting and gaining traction for your brand, so you can put your focus where it’s needed most.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
In the midst of the pandemic, Social Elixir Creative found that there is always room to pivot any brand strategy in any economic environment. We realized that businesses were closing, the economy began changing, and as a result, Social Media Marketing needed to be a primary tool for clients and businesses to stay in touch with their consumers in a new light. Because of the pandemic, many were forced to rely on modern digital networking to stay in front of their customers which opened up Social Media platforms as a primary tool for consumer communication and sales. While businesses began evolving to a more digital strategy; social media became a base for constant business updates, digital sales, and creating more value to their customer base beyond their storefront.
Contact Info:
- Email: info@socialelixircreative.com
- Website: www.socialelixircreative.com
- Instagram: @socialelixircreative
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/socialelixircreative
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vpIBHDh1GM
Image Credits
Corey Saldana
