Social media secrets: how I built my brand and made it to Forbes
It was while studying her Bachelor of Business Management at UQ that Alexandra Murray first got a taste for the influencer life, creating content for fashion brands. Upon graduating in late 2018, she lucked out with a marketing internship in LA, where she realised the true potential of the influencer industry. At just 21 years of age she launched Be Seen Socials, and 5 years on her social media agency’s success has earned her recognition as one of Forbes’ 30 under 30 Asia.
When establishing Be Seen, Alexandra recognised an opportunity to create more user-generated content (UGC) and appeal to new businesses, by providing them in-depth social media strategies to reach their target audiences. Now in her 5th year, the founder humbly told Contact she “definitely picked a niche and has done quite well with it”.
Starting as a one-woman show with an established portfolio as the face of her personal Instagram account, Alexandra is the brains and strategy behind Be Seen Socials and now has 9 staff members (and many more eager to join her growing team). They’ve worked with some big names such as Meshki, Beginning Boutique, Paola & Joy, Who Is Elijah and Cendré.
To celebrate Alexandra’s 5-year milestone, Contact spoke to her about taking the leap into owning her own business, the power of manifesting your goals and how a personal brand could elevate your career.
What inspired you to first step into the influencer space?
My main source of income while I was at uni was being an influencer. At the time it wasn’t really the ‘cool’ thing to do which is ironic now. I was doing a bunch of content creation for small brands and fashion brands while at [Women’s] college.
Once I graduated, I got an opportunity to intern in LA for 4 months. When I finished that and came back home, I realised how much the influencer industry was evolving and I set up Be Seen Socials. I turned Be Seen from just an idea in my head, and me being the face of the brands, to becoming the brains and the strategy behind the company.
What were the initial steps you took to start your business, and did you feel ready?
I don’t think you’re ever 100% ready. I feel like done is better than perfect, but when I was originally coming up with the idea I was just by myself, so I looked to how I could expand the monetisation of my influencer job. For example, when I did an influencer work, I would receive the product, read the brief, take photos and then send the content that I thought was good and that’s what the client would use. But when creating content, I would end up with hundreds of photos that wouldn’t be used anywhere. I realised that I wanted to provide a lot more than that one post that I made for them – I wanted to provide them a bundled package and add value to their brand.
How do you turn your goals into reality?
I’ve always been a doer, not too much of a thinker. For me, if I have a plan in my head I will go and execute it and then practice as I’m going.
“You can plan, and plan and plan, but nothing is ever going to go to plan.”
As for making your dreams reality, I’m a huge manifester. One of my biggest goals was Forbes 30 under 30 but I thought it was still a little further in the future for me, not something I would achieve at 25.
One of the ways I manifested, which is so weird, and I feel like I’ve never said this out loud, is by adding a photoshopped photo of my Instragram profile with ‘Forbes 30 under 30’ in my bio to my vision board. I like to manifest in ways that feel so realistic to me and one thing I’ve always loved is seeing business owners that are public figures on Instagram having Forbes 30 under 30 in their bio. Obviously, it was a metaphor for the bigger achievement of actually getting named on the Forbes 30 under 30 list, but manifestation is so powerful. I’m a huge believer in believing and visualising that you can do it.
What’s the importance of building a personal brand?
When you have a strong personal brand, it can catapult you into being a key opinion leader on so many things. Two major things that can come from building a personal brand are having more opportunities as a consultant or thought leader and creating leads for your business or the company you work for.
For example, I did a talk for Macquarie University about marketing and owning a business and that only came from representing myself as a brand and marketing that as a value add to others. Let’s say you’re a dentist who wants to go out on your own, the opportunity of doing that with the backing of an established personal brand can be so powerful.
Built with Shorthand