4: My Story: From Technical Writing to Craft Beer and Why I Do This Work

Since I ask you to tell your story, I figured I should tell mine.

In this episode, I share how I got here—from a guidance counselor's office at Georgia State, to technical writing, to falling in love with craft beer, to Monday Night Brewing, Good Beer Hunting, a James Beard nomination, and eventually building She Loves Craft into what it is today.

It's a longer road than you might think, and there are a few things I learned along the way that still show up in the work I do with breweries now.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Tap 10, the Craft Beer Marketing Podcast for brewery teams who want to turn their Instagram followers into regulars. I'm your host, Stephanie Grant, and today I'm going to share a bit about my story and how I got here. And to me, that story starts in Georgia State University's guidance counselor office after figuring out that I could not pursue my dreams of being a doctor. I'll be honest, I was in it for the money. And but the science, while I love science and respect science, I am not a science person. And if I really look back on my childhood and the things that I was interested in, I was writing, creating books, and I was into photography, very big, would not go on vacation without a disposable camera ready to go. And I remember telling the guidance counselor, what jobs can I do where I get to read? I get paid to read because I also really love reading. And one of my best and favorite days is just staying in bed, reading a book, just completely getting lost in the story. And she pointed me towards technical writing. I think we started with English, and there were three different focuses you can have at Georgia State at the time, and one of them was technical writing, the other two didn't appeal to me. And I was like, my interest was peaked. And I completely fell in love with the coursework. And I remember the first two things that we learned were one that people do not read, which if you run social, then you know this. I mean, I I know that I am not alone in saying you've put all the information in a caption about an event, and people will still ask you questions about stuff that's already covered in the caption. So people do not read. The other one was that you need to know your audience. If hearing me say that reminds you of something that I've posted, then yes, you are right. And I I love that those two things still apply. I mean, kind of hate that people don't really read or pay attention as carefully or closely as you would want them to. But I think it's really interesting that at the time I was learning about technical writing, Facebook was a thing. It was only for college students at the time, just dating myself a little bit. And it was not at all what it is today. It was uh just very simple. And so thinking about where it is today, the idea of knowing your audience, speaking directly to your audience, this is how you make connections with people, this is how you turn your followers into fans of your brewery or regulars of your brewery. It's amazing to me that simple idea is still very much relevant in how we communicate today. And yeah, and I have some I have some other things like that in my story that I'll point out. But I got my degree, got a job, and I immediately started working in my career field, and it was great. I I enjoyed the work of that first, very first job. It wasn't nearly as creative as I wanted it to be, but it was a great start. And then I started working at a company that recommends home services to homeowners. It was interesting because nobody on the team had owned a home, but we were writing articles about how to care for your home. It makes me laugh to this day because now that I'm a homeowner, boy, I have thoughts about what we were doing. But I think we were doing good work, but it was just very interesting to me that you know we none of us own homes. And the my boss, there are two things about my boss at this time. One is when she interviewed me, she asked me where I wanted to be in five years. This was 2012, and I was like, I want to be a freelance writer, and she was like, Okay, cool. And I had no idea what that really meant, but it was something I was interested in. And I sometimes I'm kind of a person who was like, I'll figure it out when I get there. And so it was like that's five years away. I'm not worried about that. I'm trying to get this job right now. You gonna hire me or no? Okay, and so yeah, I stayed there for five years. This is also the boss who I would go to to talk about craft beer. Kraft beer was starting to really take off around this time, and she also was into craft beer. She would ask me, Did you try this beer? And I would ask her, Have you had this one? We had so much fun talking about beer. Oh, I should also tell you, my gateway beer is Alagash White, and still to this day, every time I drink that beer, it's just amazing how good that beer is. It's amazing how good it. So, yeah, I was bitten by the craft beer bug around that time. And after five years of being at that company, I was fully ready to start working in craft beer. And I started thinking back to the interview that we had five years previously, and I was like, I'm gonna go out and be a freelance writer. So, long story short, I started writing about beer, and I really enjoyed being able to cover the industry. I've written for craftbeer.com, the new brewer who I actually still write for, and Good Beer Hunting, which will come back into my story a little later. I loved the work, loved the work, but the work was not, it was very, it was very difficult to turn it into a career. I don't think I still to this day don't know of any beer writer who is doing solely beer writing as their focus. It's it's just very hard to make a living off of it. So I started looking and thinking about other ways in which to structure my freelancing career, which would eventually turn into the business that I'm building now. And somewhere along the way, and I I did go back into corporate for a little while around I think 2017, 2018. And in 2020, I got offered a job at Monday night, which was very interesting to me because it's a little story time. I actually interviewed for a job at Monday night previously and did not get the job. And I think they just remembered, they remembered me, and it was during the pandemic. I think at that time we were already at home sheltering in place, and I got an email from one of the owners at Monday night and asked me if I would be interested in working with them still. I had so much love for Monday night. It was the brewery that my husband and I would go to regularly. It was also the place where we decided to get married because we both share a love for craft beer. Mine's is a little bit more neurotic than his. But, you know, we both shared a love of drinking craft beer and of the industry. And I was like, hell yeah, I'm gonna come work for you guys. And so I sort of put off the business that I was building to go work with them. And I'm so glad that I did. There's so much that I learned there, and they're so pivotal to where I am right now. So I worked there for about a year, and I decided, you know, I really, really would like to own my own business and do my own thing. And so I left there and I started working at Goodbear Hunting. So instead of just becoming a contributor, I started running their social, I became a podcast host, and I was also helping with some content things behind the scenes, and I really enjoyed the work. I was doing a number of things at the time. I was also running social for a brewery and just juggling a lot of different things. I also ended up working at the Brewers Association with Dr. J in the social impact department. I had my hands in so many different things. And when Goodbeer Hunting closed their business, I think it was in July of 2024. It was shortly after I went to Chicago to the James Beard Awards because I was nominated. One of my pieces that I wrote was nominated for James Beard Award, and shortly after that they closed. And honestly, it was really hard news to take. And I remember just doing a lot of soul searching after that to figure out what my next step was, and I knew that it would return to social media because it even if I did not do this as part of my job, I am a bit obsessed with the way Instagram works, what's working on Instagram, what things are happening on Instagram. I've been uh in love with this platform and a fan of the platform for a while. Which reminds me of how I even started to fall in love with social media. I mentioned that when I was in undergrad, Facebook was a thing. And by the time I got to grad school, that's when Facebook pages became a thing. And I think I even took a either it was part of a course that I was taking or it was a course about social media. It probably probably was a part of a course because social media at that time wasn't really looked at as a business tool, but when they introduced Facebook pages, I was like, ooh, this is a great way for businesses to connect with their customers in a real way. I knew that social media for businesses would be a game changer, okay? I knew it would, and so you know, fast forward a few years now I'm actually running social for businesses and have been doing that on and off a bit over 10 years, I believe. So when Good Bear Hunting closed, I started thinking of what my next steps would be. What do I want to do from here? And I knew I still wanted to be involved in social media, and I think around this time too, I started seeing a lot of the things that breweries were doing that were sort of not working for them, not working for their business. I believe social media to be such a powerful tool for businesses, and I've thought that since the very beginning, since the first time I was introduced to it being something that businesses could use, I knew it would be a game changer, and I still think it is. It's a free tool in which you can talk about your brand, put yourself on people's radar, and nurture a relationship with them where they are going to go to you, pick you, choose you, drop you in the group chat because they you have a relationship with them. I think about my love for Alagash. I mean, it Alagash Whites, the first beer I I drunk, and I have been following Alagash on Instagram for who knows how long. And I have worked with them as well and done content for them. I think they do such a great job of building connection with the people who love their brand. And that's why I bring them up a lot, is because yes, they have a special place in my heart, but I also really respect what they do from a marketing standpoint. And so, yeah, I think that I started to formulate this idea of social media help that wasn't management that aligns more in a teaching, coaching, consulting, whatever you want to call it, capacity. And I really love this path because there's so many things that I've learned over time, and this gives me the opportunity to work with people in different parts of the country, different parts of the world. I just recently signed a client that's in Canada, and so it gives me the opportunity to help more than managing social media myself or even trying to build a brand that feels scalable. I don't really want to own an agency, and so this was the alternative. How can I take my knowledge of social, take my love for this industry, and combine it into something that is very helpful and valuable to you guys, which is funny because that's how I ended up here in the first place. I was wondering how I could take my my love of writing and storytelling, where does that fit within the craft beer industry? I started this journey into craft beer in 2017, so it's almost been 10 years. It's almost been 10 years. It's exciting to be on this new path with you guys. It feels great to take something that I have had a lot of respect for and interest in social media to combine it with an industry that I really love and respect and help you guys, you know. I want to see you win. If you if you ever get on a call with me, I'm gonna say that I want to see you guys win. And this is my way and wish to help and to provide the support that you need. So, yeah, that is a little bit about my story and how I got here. I'm asking you guys to tell more of your story, so I thought I should share some of mine. I'm gonna keep this episode short and I won't include any examples here, but when I come back next week, I'll have some for you. I hope you enjoyed, and until next time, cheers.