If you've read my latest posts, I have rebranded and changed the name of my program, and yes: I did misspell the name. But for very good reasons that you can read below:
I changed the name of my program from Social Sam to Social Antrepreneur. But why Social Antrepreneur? It's spelled E N T R E P R E N E U R - I know that. I'm a writer, surely I cannot make such a mistake - what will people think of me..as a writer?
But this is when my entrepreneurial mind stepped in.
For one, do you know how hard it is to find available domains and user names on social media? They are all taken!
I had a bunch of potential creative names scribbled down. After hours of trying them out - correctly spelled - on Instagram; with dots, underscores, abbreviations and all those combined, I got infuriated of having that 'Unavailable' and Red Cross popping up at me. Frustrated, I threw my phone at the other end of the couch. Impossible, I thought.
When I calmed down, I realized it's not impossible - I just have to be creative and patient about it. It will come to me, I thought, and put it away for the evening. I repeated the try two more evenings. Hours of testing out new names and combinations, scraping the internet for inspiration.
Fast forward a few days. I'm at my mom's. She's been clearing out her basement and found boxes filled with my childhood books. As I go down the memory lane, one book at a time, I find my favorite book as a child. It's a series of six books actually, and tells the story of a small community of ants. Yes, ants - those small little creatures on the ground.
With a smile, I flip through the pages as old memories unlock and appear clearer. I start wondering; out of all my childhood books, with many centered around an animal, why this author chose the ant.
I suddenly remember the time I did one of those click-bait internet tests about finding your spirit animal. I did it out of boredom scrolling through Facebook some years ago.
I got the ant. Disappointed over not getting a cooler animal than that, like a jaguar or wolf, or even eagle, I quickly moved on to scrolling my feed.
Back to Costa Rica, 2 years ago. I'm on a hike in the jungle with a guide. He suddenly stops and waves me over, pointing to the ground.
There's a hole in it, and a parade of ants going in and out.
He tells me to pay attention to their size, and then if I see any difference after he stomps the ground. He lifts his foot, and with the force of his arms, stomps it twice next to the hole.
Within 5 seconds, I see some ants running out. They are three times larger than those parading neatly in a perfect line, and circling the entrance like a gang of huligans high on testosterone.
"The bouncers", he explains and continues. "Ants are the hardest working animal. They can lift up to 20 times their own body weight, and they all have different roles in the colony. They are alert, work hard day and night, and take over 200 power naps per day in order to do so. Impressive creatures."
Back to present. I'm posting a Reel on Instagram, and adding the hashtag #entrepreneur. Reading it out loud, I pay notice to its phonetics: ant..rep..reneur. Ant..
Within a second I'm sitting up straight in my couch. My brain hot of thoughts popping up. All other senses turned off. I save my Reel as a draft and quickly tap to my Meta settings. I go to change my user name, and type in social_antrepreneur.
As the little buffer spins, I whisper "come on..".
And then, a green check and the text "Available" pops up.
Less than a second later, I'm doing the most ugly happy dance in my living room ever, as my wiener dog jumps around me thinking it's playtime, nibbling on my legs.
And that's how Social Antrepreneur came alive.
It's 9:30 p.m. Bedtime for me normally. But not that evening.
"Be the ant, Gaby" I tell myself as I sit down to start designing my new brand and updating my website and material.
To come up with a brand name today, you need to be creative and ready to break rules. Because as more and more people set up brands, social media accounts and websites, the less options we have to guarantee ownership of the brand name on its different digital marketing channels. In my case, I had to break my inner writer's rules.
You know how people tell you everything you do has a purpose? To trust the process?
Well, I think this story is a great representation of it. And I'm so grateful to get to share it with you.
If you would like to read more about Social Antrepreneur and how it can help you, please go to socialsam.io - working on changing the domain still! Ant steps..
Love,
Gaby
Comentarios