[quote style=”boxed”]Read. Write. Attend networking events and conduct massive amounts of research on things that inspire you.[/quote]
Leslie Richin is a freelance social media strategist, publicist, writer and founder of Low Maintenance PR.
Since starting her own company, Low Maintenance PR in 2009, Leslie has joined forces on social media and PR based projects for clients including The Daytime Emmy Awards, Shorty Awards, Bordeaux Wines, Sweetery NYC, Cassidy Turley, Sokenbicha, Leica Camera and Xbox Kinect. Proud New Yorker (11 years!), race walker, tech enthusiast, classic rocker and foodie, Leslie starts every day with an iced soy chai and (for obvious reasons), can’t live without her iPhone and MacBook Pro.
What are you working on right now?
Writing a blog post and putting together social media recaps for two different client events at the Food & Wine Festival that took place this past weekend.
Where did the idea for Low Maintenance PR come from?
After being laid off from my job in HR in 2009, I decided to make a career change and dive into another interest and college major, Public Relations/Journalism. The name came from the idea that since I’m only one person, things were done on a smaller scale, but luckily, over the years, this has changed with my years of experience in the industry.
What does your typical day look like?
I wake up earlyand once my iced soy chai kicks in, I’m motivated to handle the rest of the day; usually a mix of community management, blogging, strategizing, research, generating content, recaps/reporting, attending a client event and pitching new business.
How do you bring ideas to life?
Researching, trial and error and more researching
What’s one trend that really excites you?
Live tweeting events.
What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?
I was an Executive Assistant for many years. A majority of my bosses were extremely stressed and often took their frustrations out on me but I learned not to take things personally (though difficult for me) and that I never wanted to be the kind of person who would look down on their assistant.
If you were to start again, what would you do differently?
I was undecided for too long and then focused on working in the music business (which didn’t pan out). I would have started in the field of PR/Communications earlier in my career (although I also loved working in HR). Also, I wish I had purchased massive amounts of Apple stock and learned HTML in college.
As an entrepreneur, what’s the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?
Read. Write. Attend networking events and conduct massive amounts of research on things that inspire you.
What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur and how did you overcome it?
Going out on your own, you’re bound to have failures. Being passed over for clients and projects is always difficult, but you can’t spend time dwelling on things you can’t change. You learn and move forward. Learning from my mistakes has allowed me to overcome them.
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
Keep a notebook on your nightstand for those late night/early morning ideas. Use HootSuite. Test content/photo layouts on your personal Facebook page before posting them on your client’s page(s). Contribute to blogs whenever possible. Subscribe to HARO. Talk positive, think positive.
If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be and how would you go about it?
It would be nice if smoking was banned on NYC sidewalks. Start a petition (and try not to get killed).
Tell us a secret.
In college, I auditioned to sing in a wedding band.
What are your three favorite online tools or resources and what do you love about them?
I love (and couldn’t do my job without) HootSuite. I also love TweetReach for post event Twitter data and am currently addicted to Pinterest because the images are inspiring and creating your own pinboards with pins you’ve personally selected, is fun.
Three people/companies we should follow on Twitter and why?
1) Burberry (always inspiring and leading the way in social media)
2) Mashable (tech news around the clock)
3) I can’t live without my NYC food/event/fashion news so I love NYMag, Thrillist, Time Out NY and Guest of a Guest, Eater and Grub Street
When was the last time you laughed out loud? What caused it?
Today! This:
What do you think of people who think all you do is spend time on Facebook all day?
Can’t even begin to explain how much more there is to just posting something on a social media platform. So much time goes into generating content and monitoring engagement- best time to post, what worked, what didn’t, timely content, live content, targeting content, live content… I could go on…
What’s next?
The goal is to continue working with great clients to produce great things via social media and events.
Connect:
Leslie Richin on LinkedIn:
Leslie Richin on Twitter:
Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.