Welcome to Voices in PR! Today’s guest is Caitlin McCall, Founder and CEO of educational platform, Eco-Conscious Diver (eco-consciousdiver.com). Caitlin saw that the scuba diving industry had a need for marine conservation resources, so she used her background in Advertising and Communications to create a digital community and learning resource center. Eco-Conscious Diver was created in 2019 and has now expanded further to teach other passionate aspiring entrepreneurs how to harness the digital space to create a business they love. Eco-Conscious Diver now hosts six online courses in marine conservation AND digital marketing!
My name is Caitlin McCall. I’m the founder of a company primarily an online company, called eco-conscious diver, and basically, I have combined my background with marketing and social media with diving and teaching divers about marine conservation online.
What is it like to make a full-time income from social media? What’s your story behind it?
Absolutely! Honestly, it’s a dream come true. I majored in advertising at college and when I graduated I struggled a lot with work in offices, just so much with the office culture, the commute, office politics, and the lack of creativity. And I always knew that I wanted to start a business. I have tried to start at least five other businesses before this one that finally hit the mark and made a full-time living. I’ve been able to do that because of social media. It’s awesome to be able to work from home and have my hours, especially when I am kind of a creative-minded person. I love it!
What social media platform is your favorite and why?
Instagram. Instagram is my largest platform and it’s the one I targeted from the very beginning. I have created an account separately for my account when I decided I wanted to have a business as an influencer and I targeted Instagram. I just love it! I like the mixture of being able to create photos but also the copy, captions underneath. I think it’s an opportunity to give a lot of added value on social media that way. Especially with Reels, I feel like you know they’re giving us another chance to reach an even larger audience. It’s picking up the algorithm, so I still love Instagram. I am using Tik Tok now too though. It’s addictive!
Can you share how you combined digital marketing skills with your passion?
You know it’s kind of an interesting story. Because I would say early in my career I didn’t know what my passion was and as I said before I wasn’t excited by the office environment I was in. I was mostly working in Print advertising, which is now almost obsolete, which is crazy. So I just decided to move to Australia and became a divemaster and then a dive instructor. That’s when I really found my passion and then I decided this is what I love. I know I always want to have my own business so let me try to do something with what I love. Before this, I tried to start businesses but they were silly little things. I do think that’s definitely why it took off this time. I recommend people follow their passion and use their skills together. But I went into it purposefully like I knew this is what I wanted to do. So I create a separate account and then I started posting with the goal in mind to gain an audience. I didn’t start monetizing until I had like 18,000 followers. I wish I had monetized earlier. I do. I just didn’t know the direction to take it until I found out about online courses. It’s kind of like the same time as the pandemic. The diving industry took a hit because obviously, that’s an in-person event that you’re doing. So it was honestly kind of the perfect timing and no one in my industry had done online courses.
Is there a story that you can share about how digital marketing makes a difference to your career in diving or the other way round?
Absolutely! I don’t know if you are aware of this. Diving is traditionally a lower-income thing. People always say they do it for the love of the sport or the love of the ocean. But you know it’s pretty well-known that you’re not going to get rich in scuba diving. You are doing it and you can travel the world. It’s like a trade-off. But I have the belief that if you’re providing the value then you should be rewarded and compensated fairly for that, so I didn’t want to take that as the final answer. There has to be a way to make adequate income for what I’m putting out there. So this allowed me to do that in this industry and this niche. Because you do get kind of locked especially if you’re working for a dive shop. It takes a lot of money to start a dive shop. It’s a high start-up cost. For people who are going to start their own business, this is difficult. But this is a way for other people and me to scale without having to burn themselves out. It’s changed the diving industry. I’m hoping that it does for other people too. That’s why I started courses about what I’ve done because I’m hoping that other people can kind of follow my lead and they can expand in the diving industry.
How do you grow your audience on social media platforms? Any tips?
I try a bunch of different content types especially when people are just starting. Make a list and try a bunch of different types of content and then look at your analytics. If they’re not already a business account become a business account so that you can look at the analytics of all your posts. You can see exactly what people are liking and then start doing more of that. It’s kind of like narrowing down what it is that you’re posting about based on feedback. I always say it’s like you want to fail or learn upwards. You’re learning as you go and figuring out what your audience love.
What does your typical workday look like?
If I’m launching a course, it’s a little more intensive. But for my typical day, I have an extensive morning routine. I think it is because obviously for working from home I recommend everyone to have a morning routine. I think it helps me a lot. I do all of my self-care kind of stuff in the morning. I wake up. I work out which is mostly running. I stretch and take a cold shower. In the morning I like to do all of what I call admin work, so it’s the kind of less fun stuff, like I check all my emails, help with customer service, anything that’s kind of tedious like that. Because first of all, I haven’t eaten. I tend to get my creativity hit like in the afternoon, so I do all of my creative stuff in the afternoon, like filming any sort of videos and stuff that I want to film. I try to stop working until 6 but you know for anyone who works from home or works for themselves they will tell you that’s kind of a joke. I tried but that’s like an advantage of starting your own business.
What do you think is the most important thing when dealing with social media?
I would say authenticity definitely just making sure that your authentic you know in any Niche there’s you know especially if you’re teaching online or selling a product I mean there’s always going to be someone selling it for cheaper than you if you’re teaching online you know people can find everything on YouTube so what’s the difference between why are they going to send the money with you and the difference is you you know people connect with you they like your teaching style you know everybody say unicorn nobody’s exactly the same so use that to your advantage and try to be the most authentic version of yourself you can and people they they love it you know people just love authenticity though and it’s just so I don’t know I felt like I was almost like putting on fake persona but because I was like so nervous you know a little bit you know what I’d like I have to just be myself and if people like you they do and if they don’t then they could unfollow and they weren’t meant to be anyway Piper wants to start their building get out of their credibility or their personal profile.
About Voices in PR:
Voices in PR is a platform where we discuss relevant issues regarding PR and social media. We get insight from influencers and PR leaders about useful and trending topics. Check out our video as well, linked to this blog. If you like this program, or would like to share your thoughts, please comment below. Headquartered in New York City, Bao Communications is a full-service bilingual PR Agency specializing in social media, media relations, content creation, and influencer marketing. We serve local, national, and global clients in the United States and China.