Happy New Year everyone!

I’ve been contemplating on doing this for a few weeks now because as most 2021 recaps go, the moments and highlights often shared are positive and to be frank, 2021 was a total rollercoaster for me, and in turn, for our team.

However, as I’m committed to running beige. social from a place of authenticity, kindness and trust, I decided to share a recap of how 2021 went and our plans for 2022.

First of all, it’s only right to mention that beige. social started in mid-2020 as primarily a freelance venture. However, as I saw the great need to change people’s and brand’s mindsets about social media and business as a whole, I then decided I needed to bring in more people who share the same values as I do to make more impact.

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Here’s a recap of our 2021 highlights:

January

• After working with beta clients in 2020, I started to think about shifting my niche from small business to conscious brands and changing our business model from freelance to agency.

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February

• Won 2 new clients
• Hired my first part time team member to support copywriting

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March

• Incorporated the company into a private limited company and brought in Aliff as my co-founder.
• Hired my second part time team member to support content creation
• Started the shift towards working with conscious brands and changed to an agency business model

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April

• Officially rebranded to beige. social to attract more conscious brands in the f&b, wellness, lifestyle and sustainability space
• Hired my third part time team member to support social media management
• Unfortunately, my mum had passed away due to cervical cancer and although the business was growing fast, it was still in a very early stage and I was still heavily involved in the day to day. We had to stop taking on new clients and put our operations to the bare minimum so that I can go back home to the Philippines.

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May

• I planned to go back to Singapore however I caught covid-19 and this further delayed our growth and initial plans for beige. social as I needed to be away for a longer period than originally planned.

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June

• Slowly returned to business
• Won a client
• Invested in Sprout Social, Notion and other tools to improve our client servicing and overall workflow

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July

• won a client

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August

• won a client

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September

• Celebrated our one year anniversary
• Invested in Social Superlatives Certification Program

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October

• won a client

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November

• hosted our first ever social media trends talk at Crane

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December

• took more time off to reflect on the past year and prepare for the new year

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Because the business is so young, my personal life has affected my life as the CEO and also the lead strategist/social media manager. Being hands on in the business indeed had its pros and cons so it was very important for me right at the very beginning, to be as transparent and honest as I can in my journey.

In the second half of the year, I experienced more personal setbacks that I wouldn’t go over on here even further and this resulted, unfortunately, in more roadblocks, losses, setbacks and challenges for the business.

All of these do not discourage me. In fact, I believe it makes me, and in return, beige. social even stronger.

This 2022, our word is SCALE. We will be actively investing in ourselves to grow the team, our portfolio and our impact.

• I realised that I needed social media support from team members who are locally based especially if relationship building is important to what we do. This is the year we will be investing in hiring the right team members who are also all based in Singapore.
• The SMCEO’s Social Superlatives Program - Even with over 8 years of social media experience under my belt, no one should ever stop learning. I have invested in a 12-month certification and coaching program to ensure we always bring immense value and impact to our clients.
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• We will also be looking into how we can make our website carbon neutral.
• Our two big green goals as a company are to become a certified b corporation by 2025 and to be climate positive by 2024. I admit that we are still in the early stages of our journey and a lot of work still has to be done. Last year, we realised that planting one tree isn’t enough to offset our carbon emissions individually and as a team. Starting this year, we are planting 12 trees for each team member and client we have. according to Ecologi, it takes an average of 144 trees per year to offset a person’s annual carbon emission and we would like to take a step closer to that number. In the next couple of years, we will dive deeper and educate ourselves on how we can slowly but surely achieve our green goals.
• We also aim to provide more tools and resources to help more brands take a conscious approach towards social media and business which means you can expect more talks and workshops, value-based content and possibly more offerings (some complimentary) to make this happen.

We hope you are excited about the new year as we are! Here’s to hoping your 2022 will be filled with joy, gratitude, mindfulness and abundance!

x

Maria