Photograph: Mulganai
“Being an Aboriginal person and stepping into the business space is a huge decision,” Jarin Baigent, co-founder of Trading Blak, said at Meta for Business’s recent #BuyBlak Summit. But social media and going digital have helped foster a pathway for a number of Indigenous business owners to take their companies to new heights.
Two such business owners are Laura Thompson, co-founder of Clothing the Gaps, and Emma Hollingsworth, artist and founder of Mulganai. Both women started their businesses on Instagram and have built a large social media presence. But while they are finding success now, it wasn’t easy at the start.
Emma creates artwork for Mulganai in her home studio in Meanjin.
Hollingsworth recalls having just 50 followers on the Mulganai art Instagram account when she started. “And most of them were my family and close friends.”
For the first two years Hollingsworth didn’t get much traction on her account, despite seeing other accounts like hers grow. But family and friends told her to stick it out and she did. Then the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement happened. “That is when I noticed a huge influx of people following me,” Hollingsworth says. “I feel like there’s more of an awareness now, with people wanting to know about my culture and about the art.”
Emma Hollingsworth, artist and founder of Mulganai
Thompson recalls how BLM also kickstarted her majority Aboriginal-owned business on Facebook. “During the first Covid lockdown we realised that content would be king and that lots of people would be spending a lot of time on their phones and something we could do to help was to provide good content. We thought a lot about what we’re going to post and what issues we’re going to talk about – this was at the same time as the Black Lives Matter movement was really starting to gain momentum here in Australia as well. So we firstly used the platform to educate and the t-shirts definitely came second after that. Instagram and Facebook’s been phenomenal in not only allowing our business to flourish, but also to campaign for causes that are close to our heart.”
Along with their websites, Hollingsworth and Thompson rely on their Instagram and Facebook shops to sell their products. But they both say that in order to sell something, you have to build a following first. And the best way to build a community of followers is to be your authentic self.
“A hundred per cent you need to be yourself,” Thompson says. “Show the people who are behind the brand and continue to use your Instagram stories. You know, show your bloopers, show the moments you’re proud of, show the funny things that happen. I think people really love getting to know the people [behind the business] … The difference between the smaller brands and some of the bigger brands is you don’t know who are running the bigger brands.”
Laura Thompson, co-founder of Clothing the Gaps
Hollingsworth also says her followers wanted to know more about her. “I’ve always stuck to the mantra to just be myself, be authentic,” she says. “People wanted to see that authentic self. They wanted to see what I was doing with my day. They wanted to see my process. They wanted me to be real.”
A huge benefit of running your own social media accounts is having control over what you post. As Baigent said at the #BuyBlak Summit: “I have full control over my voice and how I want my business to be seen online.”
Another big benefit is having access to a community of people who are interested in what you do. Leesa Watego, who started Black Coffee, a networking event for Indigenous business owners, talked about this at the #BuyBlak Summit. “So many Indigenous people don’t have people in their family who are in business,” she said. “[We thought that] well, if we don’t have people in our family who have done that, why don’t we create a family – an Indigenous business family … We started having those conversations on social media.”
Both Thompson and Hollingsworth say how important their communities of followers are to them.
For Thompson, the community determines what clothes her business makes next. “In many ways, the narrative and the conversations that are happening in community determine what our next collection is going to be,” she says. “So it’s very much organic in the way we produce clothes.”
“The narrative and the conversations that are happening in community determine what our next collection is going to be,” says Laura Thompson, co-founder of Clothing The Gaps.
Hollingsworth, meanwhile, gives back to her followers by running special promotions on social media just for them. “I try to do giveaways. I try to do sales, and then I’ll create more collections and just bring out little things that they can purchase.”
Listening to your followers is crucial, Thompson says. “I’ll check my Instagram messages before I check my emails every day,” she says. “Because Instagram and Facebook, both those places will give you instant feedback about whether your product or your message is being received in the way you want it to.”
Creating products and building community, not to mention the many other things that go into running a business, is hard work. Hollingsworth says: “I wear a lot of hats!” But neither she nor Thompson would have it any other way.
Thompson says: “This business has allowed us to self-determine our future. We talk about self-determination a lot in Aboriginal community and I come from working in Aboriginal community-controlled spaces. But in all honesty, since we’ve been part of a social enterprise, I really feel like we’re truly able to self-determine our futures and that’s because we’re not funded by governments.”
Hollingsworth says a big reason she started Mulganai was so she could be her own boss. “I like that I can build something and I can make it as big or as little as I want and I can expand Mulganai until the day I die,” she says. “There’s so much freedom in it.”
This holiday season, Meta is encouraging everyone to shop with First Nations-owned businesses. To discover more First Nations-owned businesses, search #BuyBlak on Facebook or Instagram.
