ABOUT ME

Hey there! I'm Becca. I'm an entrepreneur based in Madison, WI, but let's rewind to see how my company Essence Social Media Management came to be.

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​I started managing social media accounts while I was in my first two years of college at UW-Milwaukee. My major was Journalism, but my professors encouraged me and my fellow classmates to explore every kind of media we could. Long story short, I applied to be a Social Media Intern for a start up clothing brand and got it! I learned a ton and had a great experience, but I ultimately had to leave that opportunity because I decided to transfer to UW-Madison. 

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​Fast forward, I graduated with a BA in Journalism from UW-Madison. Great, right? Well, after applying for jobs and doing multiple interviews, I realized maybe I wasn't as in love with Journalism as I once thought. I wanted to tell stories; I envisioned myself writing and maybe doing photojournalism for a magazine or being a columnist of some kind. The reality was that those types of jobs are hard to find and even harder to make a living off of. So, I decided to start applying for marketing jobs instead.

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I landed my first Social Media Management role, partially due to that internship I mentioned previously, and I was thrilled. It started off great. I grew one of the Instagram accounts at that job from 8K to nearly 50K followers, but slowly I started to realize maybe the corporate 9-5 life wasn't for me. The never ending and unproductive Zoom calls, the constant desire to prove myself and the fact that I didn't get to create very often in that role drove me nuts. The fact was that I wasn't happy anymore. So, I quit. 

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To be honest, I was terrified, and I had no idea what I was going to do. I took a job as a Prep Cook to pay the bills, and because I do really like cooking. Also, I thought maybe I could start a food blog to make some extra income. Anyway, as it turned out, the job was exactly what I needed. I was working through a lot, and I loved that I had found a routine that felt natural and was able to work independently.

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At one point, my boss at that job asked me about my past experience managing social media accounts, and that is where the idea to start this business really began. I managed the accounts for the restaurant I worked at, and I was surprised to find that I really liked it. I made these videos of me prepping various sauces, salsas and other things for the restaurant, and people really liked them. One of the videos I made got 255K views over night, and (not to brag) that's really when I started to realize I was pretty good at this. 

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I researched the steps I had to take to start an LLC, and Essence Social Media Management was born! Why the name Essence? Well, to me every business worth supporting has a soul, a set of core values and ideas, a vibe (as us millennials like to say), an essence.

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Furthermore, at the time, we were smack dab in center of the COVID-19 Pandemic, and watching businesses that had been around for decades just disappearing left and right struck something in me. I grew up in a small town, where small businesses were the only type of business we had for the longest time. (For real, we didn't get a Walmart until I was in high school.) I felt compelled to help some how, and I had seen the type of reach I could get creating and posting content on social media.

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Fast forward to today. I currently work with an amazing and eclectic group of clients located mainly in Madison's east side. I hope to continue to grow the Essence brand family and build a team here.