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Meet Amy Donohue of Hybrid Social in Central Phoenix

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy Donohue.

Amy, before we jump into specific questions about your business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Many people know me for social media, my kidney donation, or my work in cannabis. The funny thing is, I live and breathe all three, 24 hours a day. I was a high school Spanish teacher many years ago, and my students showed me Friendster and Myspace. I never logged onto Friendster again but dug into Myspace. I was also a comedian and FM Radio DJ at the time, so Myspace was a great place to build my personal brand.

In 2006, I got paid for my first social media gig on Myspace, by helping a small mom & pop A/C repair to set up a business profile. At first, I thought it was absurd to have a business there. Boy, was I wrong!

After teaching, saw my act, I got into sales and digital marketing. I added Twitter and LinkedIn to my social media. After a gig, I’d get tweets from people who say my act or listened to me on the radio. I got to know them all, and built relationships instead of blasting my messages.

Then, in 2011, I saw a Twitter conversation between two people I was following. One had a very sick mother, who was dying of kidney failure. They were chatting about her mother finally agreeing to get a transplant.

I responded immediately. Our mutual Twitter followers saw it, and the wave was created. This was January 2011, and in April, I donated my kidney to her mother. Our story garnered a ton of local, national, and international press. The Today Show came out twice to film us.

Then, two weeks shy of our surgery, I was fired from my job for missing my sales goal during the testing to donate my kidney. Within hours, I had job offers from all over Phoenix and took one doing social media.

I’ve been doing social media ever since. After my kidney donation, I looked into medical marijuana. I am sober and haven’t had alcohol in almost 20 years, so it was important for me to be educated and not believe in stigma. I learned so much that I decided that cannabis social media would be my niche.

I’ve been doing compliant cannabis social media for five years. I consult for a lot of different businesses in the industry, from training to full implementation of their social media strategy. I also make full spectrum beauty products for women over 40. It’s a very rewarding and exciting industry to be in. It’s changing all the time, and my prior social media experience has given me a one-up on those who are just coming in.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
This road is never smooth. For starters, social media is still considered “new.” Many business owners don’t understand it, so their expectations are often way off-course. They don’t understand the strategy and content creation that goes into starting a brand online. “My nephew can do it.” No, he can’t. Another struggle is that businesses balk at prices from experts in social media. They don’t understand that your social media is your brand’s welcome mat, customer service, and voice of the company.

Tell us about your company. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of as a company? What sets you apart from others?
My company, Hybrid Social, was the first cannabis social media brand in Arizona, and one of the first nationwide. I already had almost 10 years of social media experience, so I evolved into cannabis after getting my medical marijuana card and being a consumer. I’ve had social media workshops and webinars for many years and taught through major networking groups in Arizona. I love to teach small business owners about social media, so they understand what they need to do (properly) to grow their businesses.

I also do short-term build-up campaigns. I take over for 90 days, clean everything up, and get organic interaction going. It’s great to hand it over to a business owner, so they can see all that went into it. What sets me apart is that I focus on compliance in my social media. I follow the rules. I know the etiquette on every network because I actually use them all.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I had to start over, I would do it with a mentor. I’ve learned everything on my own, and that took time away from me implementing my knowledge.

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