Rising Stars: Meet Nikki Shipp of Gilbert

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nikki Shipp. They and their team shared their story with us below:

Nikki is the CEO and founder of The Social Sailor, a social media agency that creates consistency and brand awareness for small businesses. Nikki has a diverse and skills-rich background. Her initial career spanned 17 years in the health care system, where she served her clients as a Dental Hygienist. During this time, she also developed her professional career by obtaining a BS in Human Nutrition, which led her to spend 10 of those 17 years as an educator & lecturer on nutrition and oral health care. Following her passion for speaking and developing strategies to break down learning gaps, she continued her professional development and received a Master’s in Educational Leadership. Eventually, she stepped into her second career as a project manager and was unexpectedly thrown into social media. She immediately fell in love with creating content for small businesses and learned everything she could about the digital social world. This ultimately led her to launch her own company in 2019.

• “I get excited when I work with a business that needs social media help. I like helping others develop a personality and brand for their business.” – Nikki Shipp

Little did she know that all the skills, tools, and resources she had learned would be helpful elsewhere. When her son, Drayson, was diagnosed at age 3 with Autism, she immediately took action and began researching ways to help her son. This led to a journey that she never thought would happen to her.

• “I learned that there are a lot of resources and support out there to help people on the spectrum, but you have to go digging for them. It does not readily appear unless you go looking for help.”

Throughout the years, Nikki has learned how to get the help and resources for her son. She is proud of Drayson’s strides and is his most prominent advocate. She also took the time to speak to many other parents who have children on the spectrum, and she soon realized that parents need help, too.

• “Parents need to feel empowered and confident that they can advocate for their child and find community support, which is an emotional process. When I speak to parents, I often hear much of their emotional response, but they are at a loss on where to go for help.”

After much thought, Nikki launched her passion project – Pieces For My Puzzle Podcast! This show is designed to help parents find resources, learn how to ask the questions they seek answers to and provide hope and inspiration to families with a loved one on the spectrum.

It wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
My biggest struggle was to identify my life purpose. It has been a bumpy road to reinvent myself – mainly an emotional one! However, I have realized that I’m meant to do more than just one thing in this lifetime. I am blessed that I am versed in many different areas and have been able to use all my skills and talents in various ways. We are conditioned to think we must decide on one career path and do that for the rest of our lives. We have so much more to offer than that!

I appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Social Sailor is a boutique social media agency providing customized social media content for each small business it works with. We do content writing, imagery creation, calendar strategy, and consulting – just the general categories of detail and attention we put into each account. The biggest complaint we hear from business owners is that they need more time to do their social media regularly. I am proud of the team I’ve created, our work, and our relationships with our clients. We specialize in creating organic content to help each business owner create consistency with their brand on their social media platforms.

In addition, as a podcast host dedicated to helping the autism community, my goal is to provide resources and support for families who have a loved one on the spectrum. Through my interviews with knowledgeable experts and personal stories from individuals with autism and their families, I strive to shed light on the challenges and triumphs of navigating life with autism. It is my hope that by sharing these stories and insights, families will feel less alone and more equipped to support their loved ones. So whether you are a caregiver, educator, or someone on the spectrum, I invite you to join me on this journey toward greater understanding and empathy. Together, we can make a difference in the lives of those affected by autism!

Do you have any big plans?
We are looking forward to continuing to provide excellent service to our clients. We have some new things on the horizon, and we hope to provide additional tools to the small business owner if they choose to do social media on their own. We also plan to ramp up our Reels workshops this year as we’ve had much success running those with local small businesses.

My podcast, Pieces For My Puzzle, has some great plans this year so stay tuned for that too!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thesocialsailor.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesocialsailor/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesocialsailor

Image Credits
Photo credit: Nikki Shipp – The Social Sailor, Amanda Main – Mainstay Productions