Beyond the Likes: Real Impact for Businesses - Eliana Swanson
1 MILLION CUPS NORTHEAST GEORGIA SERIES
For Eliana Swanson, entrepreneurship has never been about following one carefully mapped career path. It is about curiosity, adaptability, and having the courage to create the next
opportunity.
Those qualities have taken her around the world, through a demanding government career and into several entrepreneurial ventures. Today, they are also helping her make an impact much closer to home—helping local businesses understand how social and digital marketing can turn their stories into real connections with customers.
Outside of work, Eliana describes herself as social, active, and “endlessly curious.” She has traveled to 40 countries, with hopes of visiting at least 40 more, and has always been fascinated by people—how they live, what they value and, most importantly, how they connect.
That curiosity would eventually become an important part of her approach to marketing.
AN ACCIDENTAL ENTREPRENEUR
Eliana didn’t originally set out to build a career in digital marketing. Before moving to Georgia, she worked in a demanding government career while she and her husband owned a short-term rental. Like many small business owners, they quickly discovered that someone had to figure out how to market it.
Eliana volunteered.
She began teaching herself how customers discovered businesses online, what made them stop and pay attention, and what ultimately encouraged someone to book, visit or buy.
What began as a necessity became something she genuinely enjoyed. “I realized that I loved the combination of creativity, strategy, storytelling and problem-solving,” she says.
But marketing is only one piece of her entrepreneurial story. Eliana continues to pursue opportunities in travel planning, personal assistance, interpretation services and community-focused events through a nonprofit she founded. “I love taking an idea that does not exist yet and figuring out how to make it real,” she says. “That is simply how I am wired.”
HELPING LOCAL BUSINESSES COMPETE IN A DIGITAL WORLD
For small businesses, particularly in a rural community, social media can be one of the most affordable ways to reach customers. But Eliana says there is an important distinction between simply being on social media and actually using it strategically.
One of the biggest misconceptions she hears from business owners is: “Social media doesn’t work.”
Her response? The platform usually isn’t the problem. “Anyone can post something,” she explains. “Creating content with a clear purpose, for the right audience, and in a way that supports the business is very different.”
A business can post every day and still accomplish very little if customers don’t understand the message, can’t find the address, don’t know the hours or aren’t given a reason to visit.
And while businesses often become focused on followers and views, Eliana encourages entrepreneurs to look beyond those numbers.
She remembers a local client saying they wanted to grow from fewer than 2,500 followers to 20,000. “Twenty thousand followers!” she jokes. “As if I could stop by the follower store and pick them up!”
For a local business, she believes engagement matters more than popularity. “I would rather have 1,000 people who genuinely care than 20,000 who do not know why they followed me.”
Those 1,000 people can become customers, advocates and ambassadors—the people who share a post, recommend a restaurant, attend an event or tell a neighbor about a local business.
That is where digital marketing can have a very real local economic impact.
FROM VIEWS TO PEOPLE WALKING THROUGH THE DOOR
For Eliana, successful marketing isn’t measured solely by likes. She has promoted events primarily through social media and watched them reach capacity. She has helped smaller events sell out and generated strong attendance for larger inaugural events using a combination of digital and traditional marketing. Those are the results she finds most rewarding.
“The success is not just a high number of views,” she says. “It is real people buying tickets, walking through the door, supporting a local business and participating in their community.”
Know who you are. Know who your customer is. Know what you want them to do. Then build your marketing around that goal. “You cannot choose the right road if you do not know where you are trying to go.”
TECHNOLOGY CHANGES. PEOPLE DON’T.
AI, short-form video, and social platforms functioning as search engines are already changing how businesses market themselves. Eliana believes small businesses need to pay attention—but they don’t need to chase every new trend.
Instead, businesses should continue learning while protecting something technology cannot manufacture: their authenticity. “People want to know that there are real human beings behind the logo or the pretty post,” she says.
AI can organize ideas, improve wording, analyze information and save time. But when businesses rely on it to create everything, Eliana believes they risk losing the personality that made customers care about them in the first place. “AI should support your voice, not replace it.”
For local businesses, that human connection may become even more valuable as the digital world becomes increasingly automated.
KEEP BUILDING DOORS
Eliana’s entrepreneurial philosophy extends far beyond marketing. Entrepreneurship, to her, means having the freedom to create, pivot and build within the limits of her own imagination rather than someone else’s walls.
It also means accepting that not every idea will work.
“There will be obstacles, mistakes, closed doors and people who try to dim your light,” she says. “Do not give them free space in your mind or a vote in your future.”
Her advice to someone just beginning their entrepreneurial journey is to remain committed to the dream—but flexible about the path used to reach it. “Learn when to adjust, when to listen and when to trust yourself.”
And when the traditional path doesn’t exist?
Eliana has an answer for that, too.
“Keep building new doors until one opens—and if necessary, learn how to build the whole house.”
Comments