An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Make your Instagram feed vibrant and exciting. Aesthetic is so important when it comes to catching customers eyes within only a few seconds!
As part of my series about healthcare leaders, I had the pleasure of interviewing Brant Lyons.
Brant Lyons always liked to break the mold, especially when it comes to candles. When Lyons moved from Alabama to Nashville, Tennessee for a marketing director position at Twitter, his very first purchase was a condo right at the heart of the city. With a blank canvas in front of him that was just begging to be decorated, Brant set out to find the most iconic furnishings to make this new place feel like home again. After gathering up his treasures from nearly every home store or eclectic flea market he could find, he noticed one thing was still missing. Where were all the fun, statement candles? Candles had always made his space feel warm and cozy, but with this new condo he wanted the candles to be a direct reflection of his bold and wildly fun aesthetic. Thus, SCANDLE was born.
SCANDLE is a fiercely unapologetic brand that seeks to make your house feel like a home no matter where you may find yourself. With over-the-top sayings that range from quirky to racy, to our candles that look like fine art pieces, every SCANDLE is aimed at making your space more lively and tailored to you. As Brant would say, “if your life isn’t a little SCANDLE-ous, are you even living?”
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Absolutely! Thank you for having me! I was a Global Account Director at Twitter living in the race of the corporate world, and I did not find it fulfilling, even though I thought it was going to be my dream job. Candles have always been a product in my everyday routine that I loved to use, a passion you could say. I started studying the formulas of candle wax and fragrance for over a year, and dreamed up SCANDLE!
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this career?
I had a major celeb (from one of my favorite shows — HINT: she’s one of the “Real Housewives” ?) reach out to me complimenting my business and wanted to buy a candle. She ended up ordering a bunch of our body candles!
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Without thinking, I gave out my cell number to a customer and she started reaching out to me constantly, like I was her best friend bahaha!
Ok. Let’s now move to the main focus of our discussion. For the benefit of our readers, can you explain why you are an authority about Social Media Marketing?
In my experience as a Twitter employee, I was lucky enough to work on some amazing global campaigns for large brands from Urban Outfitters to NFL teams. It was an incredible learning experience and taught me so much about how to shine my creative lens on these projects and use that experience for SCANDLE’s branding and marketing.
Which social media platform have you found to be most effective to use to increase business revenues? Can you share a story from your experience?
I will say Instagram for sure! I am really lucky with an amazing group of friends who are all extremely plugged in on the platform and they undeniably show their support for my business. A lot of influencer marketing and word of mouth has jump started SCANDLE’s success so far. A fun story would be a playboy mate posting one of our body candles last month and it was a super exciting day of website engagement for sure — I guess you can say sex sells!
Let’s talk about Instagram specifically, now. Can you share five ways to leverage Instagram to dramatically improve your business? Please share a story or example for each.
- Make your Instagram feed vibrant and exciting. Aesthetic is so important when it comes to catching customers eyes within only a few seconds!
- Engage with individuals daily on the business’s account for at least 20 minutes. Your customers want to feel like they are getting the support they need when it comes to their orders.
- Post 5–7 stories daily. Customers want to follow an account that they know will have fun and interesting content to check out daily.
- Really try to incorporate video content in reels a few times a week if possible. Keeping up with the latest trends is so important when it comes to e-commerce success. If reels are what’s hot, then reels are what ya gotta do!
- Lastly, show your face and be fun on your stories. Your customers want to know about you and how your brand started; be vulnerable with them!
Because of the position that you are in, you are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I honestly just want to bring happiness and laughter through my products. I want customers to be so excited for their SCANDLE package to be delivered and for it to brighten their day. This past year has been so hard on people regarding the pandemic and other issues, that people need a little joy on a daily basis, and if I can bring that amazing feeling through my products, then in my mind, I’ve done my job.
Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
Oh my gosh! I loveee this question! I honestly would love to sit down with an absolute e-commerce queen, like Kim Kardashian or Kylie Jenner and their teams. People can say whatever about that family, but the way they have hit the eCommerce scene has completely disrupted and revolutionized online shopping in a trendy, sexy, and fun way. Not many can say they have made ecomm enticing and hot like they have.
Thank you so much for these great insights. This was very enlightening!
Brant Lyons: Five Ways To Leverage Instagram To Dramatically Improve Your Business was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.