Highlight brand lab

Founder

Social Expert digital marketing agency

Exciting news folks – I've hopped aboard the crew at Social Expert - a digital marketing agency, teaming up with Anton Peretyaka and Rostislav Sprinsky as the chief production officer.

Social Expert ain't no small fry; we're top dogs in the biz when it comes to drumming up leads and helping businesses grow, both locally in Ukraine and across the globe. But that's not all we do – we're also in the game of crafting killer landing pages, setting up sales funnels and chatbots, offering expert advice, and running thorough audits.

Real soon, we're rolling out fresh products catered for experts and entrepreneurs. Plus, a bunch of my personal branding and educational gigs will be tag-teamed with the agency.

My job? Making sure our client processes are top-notch, projects keep rolling and expanding, and we keep venturing into new territories. Right now, our crew consists of 7 sharp targetologists, traffic specialists, designers, and more. I'm pumped up for success and seeing the team grow!

Need help with lead generation, whipping up a killer conversion landing page, or checking up on your ad campaigns? Don't hesitate to hit us up. I'll drop a link to our website in the comments, but feel free to shoot me a message.

https://socialexpert.agency/

Chief production officer

UniOne Email API

Head on online events

Selzy

Online event lead 

Skyeng

Content marketing teamlead

Content marketing team lead

MOREMORE SMM

SMM Courses creator and teacher:
● SMM basic manager, 300+ students trained; 
● SMM for entrepreneurs, 30 students studied; 
● Writing marathon, 12 participants;
Courses of producer-methodologist: 
● Advertising in Social Network VKontakte;
● Mobile photo for Instagram.

Main responsibilities:
● Development of training programs
● Configure LMS on system Getcourse
● Conducting training webinars
● Checking homeworks
● Creating promotion of courses using your own personal brand
● Supervising curators and teams (manager, copywriter, editor) 
● Collecting and analysing feedbacks from students
● Conducting personal consultations with students
● Search for new forms of teaching and transformation into teaching methods 
● Creation of articles and publications on the topic of training
● Creating landing-page using Tilda

Achievements:
● Over 300+ students in MME courses
● 9 out of 10 students graduate
● 8 out of 10 students are happy with their studies
● For 2 years, only 3 refunds
● The average bill is 300$
● All sales were made through a personal brand and using organic traffic from social networks (Facebook, Instagram)

Founder & CEO

Fun House Store

Project: https://www.instagram.com/fun_house_store/ 
Main responsibilities:
● Development of brand strategy presence in social media 
● Development a content plan
● Media planning and launch of project promotion
● Reports: weekly and monthly

Achievements:
● Increasing the financial flow from social networks by 4 times using targeted advertising 
● Promoting a store using targeted advertising
● Optimisation and scaling of an advertising campaign

Social Media Marketing Manager

Jewish University Chamesh

Teaching during the one year Social Media Marketing in Machon Campus.

Social Media Marketing Specialist

Elementaree

● Developing a brand presence strategy on social media (Facebook, Instagram, VK)
● Development of internal standards for working in social media
● Setting targeted advertising, monitoring the work of the agency
● Creating a sales funnel from social networks and it's analytics
● Analytics and optimisation of advertising campaigns
● Testing and finding weaknesses in the funnel, creating and transferring cases for their elimination 
● Searching and determination a database with potential buyers, analysing and working with bloggers / opinion leaders
● Organisation of photo shoots and videos contents
● Development of new content formats for social media
● Creating community management, KPI and generating reports 
● Creating a team from a scratch and creating effective work on the project
● Reports: weekly and monthly

Social Media Manager

Freelance

Clients and projects:
Karjala Park, BMW Driving Experience, Driving Experience Moto, KADORR Kids, Les Nereides Ukraine, Aurum Bloom and more
Social Media that were supportated and leaded by me: 
https://www.instagram.com/loftcase.ru/ 
https://www.facebook.com/wannafriends.official/
https://a-flora.ru/

Main responsibilities:
● Developing brand presence strategies on social media
● Development of content plan and visual design
● Live streaming and in-field content creation
● Work with client employees and training them how to work with social services and social networks
● Media planning and launching promotion of projects in social media 
● Creating reports weekly and monthly

I'm from Odesa, Ukraine, and I'm what you might call a multipotentiality. Even while holding managerial roles, I always find myself exploring new ventures. Currently, I work as a webinar funnel manager, mentor projects, lead content marketing, and teach courses. My journey began in 2009 with my first official job.

That year, on May 20th, I underwent lung surgery at the age of 18 after battling tuberculosis for three years. Just two months later, on July 20th, I returned to work part-time after the surgery, gradually increasing my hours until I worked full days. Instead of going to university or college, I chose to start working. Spending five years on education that might not be necessary seemed unreasonable to me.

Since then, I've held various positions, often rising through tough competition. Along the way, I discovered a passion for social media marketing, which eventually led me to transition fully into the marketing team at an advertising agency. This decision had a significant impact on my life and career, as I fell in love with marketing and its ability to create fame out of nothing, just by using social networks.

I found joy in competing, pushing boundaries, and being part of a team. My passion for marketing grew stronger with time. Despite facing challenges, including three layoffs in the past three years, I remained determined to succeed. I started thinking about starting my own business, something real and useful.

And so, I started my own business - a personal branding lab. My goal is to help experts, teachers, psychologists, and business owners develop their products using their name and professionalism. I especially want to support women in emerging industries. Everyone has potential and opportunities, they just need the right support and frameworks to succeed.

With my resources, ideas, knowledge, and passion, I'm dedicated to developing my business and creating job opportunities for other women in the IT and marketing fields. I believe in amplifying the voices of talented women worldwide, and that's my mission today.

Julia  Maksymova

Guys, please, don’t spend your last money on marketing. Marketing won’t save you if you’re in urgent need of a job or sales. It’s extremely rare to get instant conversions just because you threw your last 500 euros into promotion.

I see tons of projects where founders hire a marketing specialist with a budget that only covers one month of work. And guess what, in that month, no one, not even the most brilliant marketer, can perform a miracle. Then it’s the same story: no results, no money, and everyone’s disappointed, “the marketer sucks,” “marketing doesn’t work,” “we wasted our budget.”

If you’re down to your last savings and thinking of investing them into promoting your personal brand, project, or product don’t. Instead, invest in tools, learning, and assets: get useful subscriptions, set up an AI agent for your specific tasks, buy a course, or hire a photographer/videographer. But do the marketing part yourself with your own hands.

For those same 500 euros, you can get 2–3 months’ worth of content, valuable knowledge, and hands-on experience. You’re much more likely to discover what actually works on your own in a couple of months of consistent action than a marketer will in one.

And if you really want to spend that money to make yourself feel better, go for a spa weekend, have a few drinks, or buy yourself new bedding (funny but true). Just don’t throw your despair and unrealistic expectations onto a marketer. No one ends up happy that way.

Julia  Maksymova 

Product marketing manager AI-driven projects | Marketing & Personal brand strategist | Product, Content & Growth | Business consulting | Mentorship #marketing #productmanagement #businessconsulting

I’m insanely good at what I do, and I’ve achieved a lot along the way. Let me share some of the most memorable highlights part 1.

When I was recovering from lung surgery, I got an offer to work as a sales department manager at a factory. They asked when I could start. I went back to work exactly two months after surgery — first part-time, then full-time. It was my first official full-time job. I was 18. While my classmates were in college, I was processing tons of orders, building spreadsheets, and handling shipping documents. I stayed in that job for almost two years, and I’m proud of that.

After that, I became a documentation manager. I processed shipment papers, tracked inventory, and managed the flow of documents to accounting. I was so fast and precise that by noon most days, all my work was done. I was promoted to an accountant responsible for invoicing clients and monitoring payments.

But the most interesting part was this: the company participated in tenders. I had to collect all the documentation — study requirements, prepare papers, request certificates, numbers, and check everything down to the smallest detail. Sometimes we handled ten tenders at once, and I managed the entire process. During my time there, not a single tender was lost because of documentation issues.

There were many other projects: a 100+ slide marketing strategy for a real estate developer, full-cycle promotion for small brands, ad budget management, and expert consulting. Under my guidance, many SMM specialists started their careers. I’ve trained over 600 people in social media and marketing and helped many find jobs. I’ve also coached dozens of experts who later built personal brands of their own.

What ties all these stories together is my unique mindset is a mix of creativity, entrepreneurial drive, and analytical thinking. I dive deep into projects, find weak spots, test hypotheses, and launch things that didn’t exist before. My processes aren’t sterile, but they work. Even with limited resources, my teams and I have delivered top-level projects and exceeded KPIs.

I’m a professional with an entrepreneur’s mindset. In the right project and environment, I make things happen that others wouldn’t even dare to plan.

When new projects or people come my way, I instantly see potential, blind spots, and opportunities. Sometimes I go straight into the pain points, that’s where real growth happens. Analytics, positioning, sales, new channels I see the patterns and help fix or launch what’s missing.

I come in at a certain stage, under a specific request and my unconventional approach blends with the client’s product and resources to create synergy.

Not everything works out every time, but the only people who never fail are the ones who don’t try. And I keep trying. Always.

Here is the weekend. Don’t forget to:
Sleep
Eat balanced food
Hug and spend quality time with your beloved ones
Walk or at least stay outside and breathe

You body, mentality and brain needs this.
 #weekend #mentalhealth #worklifebalance

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To run a promotion successfully, the main goal should be to build a process, not chase quick wins.

Your marketing activities need to become part of your daily routine, your workflow, and your system. There are no real-life stories where it’s “boom-boom and millions in sales.” Sustainable growth, whether for a personal brand or a project, requires repeatable processes, data tracking, and analytics.

When there’s no system, burnout hits everyone: the client, the team, and even the marketing lead. Expectations get distorted, results are judged unfairly, and disappointment follows.

Here are a few examples 👇

Case 1
A promo campaign is launched for an existing landing page. Analytics show leads coming in, but all of them end up in a chatbot, and no one tracks what happens next. The ad campaign is declared a failure. Why? There’s no system connecting the marketing funnel to sales follow-up.

Case 2
A client wants to promote their YouTube channel and delegate everything. But there’s no structure: videos aren’t edited or stored properly, no shared spreadsheet with links, and assets are buried in chats and random notes. As a result, most of the time goes to organizing chaos instead of creating content. The client gets frustrated, “What have you even done?” while the marketer ends up firefighting, not promoting. Why? No operational system to support delegation and scaling.

Case 3
A mentorship program for personal brand promotion begins with three-month commitment (because shorter ones always crash). There’s a clear plan, and the first two weeks are full of energy. By week three, motivation drops, priorities shift toward “Why isn’t it working?” By the end of the first month, the mentee burns out, shuts down, and disappears. The mentor tries to help, but it’s too late. Payment for month two doesn’t come, and the mentee labels the whole experience a failure. Why? No system for managing energy, expectations, and accountability.

It’s like target shooting: You load, choose a position, aim, and fire. Then reload, aim again, adjust, shoot, evaluate. To hit the target, you must perform a series of actions before and after every shot. The key isn’t in the bullet; it’s in the process. Regular practice helps you stay focused on both the process and the goal. And that skill becomes part of how you operate in life and business.

So whenever you face a long-term marketing goal, treat it systemically. A system is a living organism. It needs constant updates, care, and optimization.

And the responsibility for keeping it alive always lies with the one who needs the result the most.

Why staying trendy matters the most for classic companies and events, or how the Rome Film Festival helped me understand it.

With the rise of the internet, new online platforms, and AI-generated content, companies with a long history are losing their audiences. When the audience leaves, so do sponsors, advertisers, and budgets. Recently, I had a chance to go behind the scenes at the Rome Film Festival, and it helped me draw some conclusions.

Before Netflix and other streaming platforms appeared, festivals showcased brand-new films. People eagerly awaited premieres, releases, and awards. The industry looks very different now. I am not a film expert, but I do know how to attract attention and build large-scale marketing campaigns.

The Rome Film Festival today is nothing like it used to be. In the past, there were sponsor parties, many guests and actors, producers, directors, and journalists. Now, it’s mainly film delegations, no side-events around the festival, and plenty of pseudo-influencers who just want photos on the red carpet.

In my humble opinion, the world has changed. Cinema is now split between traditional formats and new players. Audience numbers are falling, and people are losing interest in the festival itself.

What can be done? Use modern marketing tools to attract attention and create buzz. Stars are still important, but today bloggers and online celebrities also have a strong influence. Their participation can bring a wide reach and more discussion about the festival.

This shows that industries, events, and businesses that have been around for years must wake up and adapt to modern realities. They need to collaborate with online platforms and create integrated offline-online activities.

Events like film festivals, the Met Gala, product launches, and conferences generate massive interest among regular people and aspiring celebrities. These people want to feel connected to such events, to be part of them, and they are ready to share their experiences online.

So why not use this opportunity?

#marketing #businessawerness #eventmanagement #buzzeffect

Who’s really in charge > the entrepreneur, the producer, or the marketer?

These three roles often overlap, especially in small projects where one person does it all. I call this mode “sing, dance, and juggle everything.” If it’s a solo project, all three roles merge into one person but they still represent different areas of responsibility that require constant switching between mindsets.

In a business context, though, it’s crucial to understand who’s responsible for what.

The Entrepreneur creates systems and opportunities, spots trends, markets, and money. They develop the product, take risks, and decide where the business is heading. They’re responsible for strategy, the business model, resource management, growth, and profitability in short, for answering the big questions: “Where are we going and why?”
Focus: systems, money, sustainability.
KPI: profit and business growth.

The Producer brings an idea to life and makes it profitable. They connect meaning, people, and execution. They take an idea (their own or the entrepreneur’s) and turn it into a working process: planning, building a team, implementing, and monetizing. They’re responsible for packaging, product format, content or program creation, workflows, deadlines, and profit of a specific project.
Focus: execution, energy, revenue from a particular product.
KPI: margin and successful launch.

The Marketer makes the product visible and desirable. They know who to sell to and how, research the market, build communication strategies, and design the customer journey from curiosity to purchase. They’re responsible for positioning, promotion strategy, demand generation, sales growth, and customer loyalty.
Focus: audience, reach, perceived value.
KPI: ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) and conversion rates.

Together, these three roles form a complete ecosystem:
The entrepreneur builds the system.
The producer brings the idea to life and turns it into profit.
The marketer helps the world discover and fall in love with the product.

Each role matters and owns its share of success. Without the entrepreneur, there’s no business. Without the producer, no execution. Without the marketer, no customers.

When these roles work in sync, the project grows and everyone enjoys the process. But when responsibilities blur, chaos starts — and no one ends up happy.

#peoplemanagement #businessroles #strategy #hiring

The biggest problem with this whole AI boom is the life cycle of AI-driven / AI-based services. The story usually goes like this:

You see something cool on Product Hunt or get a recommendation in your feed.
You sign up.
You upload your data, content, or notes.
You start using it.
You even buy a subscription.
You find bugs, report them.
And then, after a while — the service dies.
No data export. No backups. Just gone.
And you’re like… f**k.

I don’t chase new tools anymore. I test them, sure but I don’t move my actual work there unless the company has been around for at least a year (ideally more).

Because let’s be honest, I don’t have time to learn a new platform every other week. And I definitely don’t want to start from scratch. Every. Damn. Time.

Once, a livestreaming tool I used just stopped working overnight, and all recordings disappeared.

So no matter how exciting this new AI world looks, sometimes it’s better to stick with the old, non-AI-driven products that won’t die tomorrow.

I honestly think right now it’s way smarter to wait and see which tools survive and turn into stable products, rather than chasing every new shiny thing.

👉 What was your most epic fail with a new AI service?

Do you have a work-life balance? What if I find it?
#worklifebalance #humor #workhard

Content, content, content. How much to make, who’s going to post it, how to shoot it, and so on. Then AI showed up and handed you a list of post ideas—dull text with zero soul—and wrapped it all up nicely in a PDF “for your convenience.”

Now everyone’s talking about content automation: here’s an AI for short Reels, another one for voiceovers without even opening your mouth, another that turns audio into text.

It sounds like magic, but here’s the catch: you’ve got this massive toolbox where every tool lives in its own little box. You open one, do something, put it back, grab another, tweak a bit more, switch again... and voilà the illusion of automation.

But that’s not where the real magic happens. The real secret isn’t in creating content fast.

It’s in managing what you’ve already created and squeezing the maximum value out of it.

That’s why I believe the future of content marketing in the age of AI is all about repurposing, reusing, and reposting. Your content should work 360 degrees, and you need a system to organize it.

Here are a few ideas on how to adapt existing content across different channels 👇

♡ You hosted a webinar now turn it into:
1. A blog post. Transcribe the video, highlight key points, and embed the recording in the article.
2. An email digest. Summarize the main insights and add a link to the replay.
3. Reels or Shorts. Cut your long video into short clips (15 seconds–3 minutes) and post on Reels, TikTok, or YouTube Shorts.
4. A social media post. Upload the full recording to YouTube or LinkedIn, add timestamps and a clear call to action.
5. A lead magnet. Offer access to the video in exchange for an email or user data.

♡ Other repurposing options:
Turn a research report into an article with visuals and key takeaways.
Break a long-form post into a series of short social media updates.
Make visual cards from data and charts.
Turn a quote from an interview or client testimonial into a standalone post.
Compile a series of webinars into an eBook.

The key is to build a repeatable process.

For example: every webinar automatically turns into a blog post + a series of short videos. To make that work, you need clear workflows and a smart storage system so you can always return to your existing content and reuse it efficiently.

Before AI, transcribing and repackaging one webinar was expensive and time-consuming. Now, you can easily revisit old recordings, feed them to AI, and get 5–20 pieces of new content from something you created 2–5 years ago. We’re living in an incredible time.

AI won’t replace content managers, not yet, but it has forever changed how we work with content. So don't waste time ;)

This is how you loose followers and clients. Digital menu of the restaurant 📵 and link to socials not working. Links which are the first what you see when you open menu. Go now and check you website and digital pages for this mistake.

Q: «How often should systems undergo updates?»

Here, I recommend using the retro-demo method, when you schedule both a retro (to analyze what went wrong or broke) and a demo (to showcase what worked). The process should be updated regularly in two directions: 

Situationally — adapting to trends, new tools, and real-time marketing opportunities. 
Systematically — once a month, conduct a retro-demo review and dedicate one organizational day to cleaning up documentation; once a quarter, compile a list of hypotheses and improvements.

You also need a red-flag system, a way to quickly detect when your activities are either ineffective or destructive, so you can adjust your strategy without delay.

Pioneer Branding - The Personal Branding Agency

We build profitable personal brands for entrepreneurs and executives, helping them stand out from the competition and stay top of mind. Create better content while saving time with our proprietary Done for You content system. 

Learn more at www.pioneerbranding.com

CEO & Co-Founder

Entrepreneurs'​ Organization

Area Director - US East

The Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) is a global business network of 19,000+ entrepreneurs in 222 chapters and 58 countries.  EO helps its members learn and grow through peer-to-peer learning, once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and connections to experts.  Direct message, email, or call me if you'd like to learn more about joining our Baltimore chapter.

Member

Leadership Expert - US East 

President | EO Baltimore

Helping local entrepreneurs scale from $250k to $1M in revenue.

Board Member | Accelerator Chair 

Board Member | MarCom Chair

The Johns Hopkins University - Carey Business School

I teach Entrepreneurial Finance at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, focusing on financing strategies for startups and tech companies. The course combines financial theory, risk assessment, and valuation with practical experience. Students work in teams to develop business plans and pitch to real investors. I incorporate case studies, expert presentations, and field interactions with entrepreneurs, investors, and incubators. The curriculum covers due diligence, term sheets, and financial reporting for startups. My goal is to create an engaging, informative, and enriching learning experience that bridges theory and current business practices.

Courses:
Entrepreneurial Finance

Academic Interests:
Vetting Business Ideas
Startup Go-to-Market Strategy
Business Valuation
Operations Management & Business Analytics

Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship

Thrive Company

At Thrive, we help local businesses grow their customer base by making more visible and relevant in the marketplace. Using branding, lead generation, and customer engagement, we help our clients attract and retain more customers. 

Learn more at www.thrivecompany.com

CEO and Founder 

GiftCardRescue.com, LLC

GiftCardRescue.com was a gift card exchange website that gained prominence when it first appeared on ABC's hit show, Shark Tank in season one. The company grew to become a leading source for discounted gift cards and was regularly featured in major publications, including the The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, NPR, Entrepreneur and More. During its eight year run, GiftCardRescue.com sold over $60 million in Gift Cards and made the Inc. 500 List in 2013 and appeared on the Inc. 5000 list for 4 consecutive years.

CEO and Founder

Citigroup

Risk & Control Manager

HR Compliance Manager

Management Associate

Personal Brand Architect | I empower visionary entrepreneurs to step into their purpose by crafting legacy-defining personal brands | 4X Inc 5000 CEO | EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® | EO Member

With over 15 years of Digital Marketing Experience, including 7 years leading a Marketing Agency, I've learned a lot about branding other businesses but missed one key piece: building my own brand.

This was a mistake that cost me more than I would ever like to admit. But, as leaders, we learn from our mistakes.

In my experience with business groups like Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) and conversations with CEO's across multiple industries over the recent year, three things became clear:

• CEOs with strong personal brands put their business in a better position.

• CEO's with strong personal brands gain faster traction on their new ventures.

• Many CEO's don't know how to start building their brand.

That’s why I launched Pioneer Branding. I decided to focus on my personal brand to show other business owners that it's still not too late.

At Pioneer Branding, we are dedicated to helping CEOs avoid the same mistake I made, by providing them with guidance and systems to build their personal brands.

I’m here to give the advice and direction that I didn’t have. I offer a free audit to get you started: Schedule a FREE Personal Brand Clarity Call here - https://pioneerbranding.com/.

Additional things to note about me:
- I've been an active member of the Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) for nearly a decade, most recently serving as Chapter President.

- My commitment to entrepreneurship extends into academia as an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University - Carey Business School.

Kwame
Co-Founder at Pioneer Branding

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