Kaylin Balderrama

I think probably the boldness that I was talking about earlier, mixed with creativity, has been something that has really helped me in my career. Something that is a pro and a con about me is I definitely don't see things as too much or as unachievable. At times, I've gone for something and it hasn't worked out for me, and I've been like, okay, it's not the time. But I think being able to take a risk and kind of just go for it has really helped me in my career, helped me to feel fulfilled and more confident. Taking that and being creative with it, I would say is probably what has helped me the most - just being bold and creative.

The best career advice I've ever received was from my old boss. She told me that it's important to be bold, but it's also important to be a collaborator. One thing that we were talking about was it's really easy to be bold and kind of be a lone wolf in your career and just bulldoze ahead. She was talking about how she thought that one of my superpowers is that I'm very bold, and also another superpower is that I'm collaborative and I want to hone in on both of those and not prioritize one over the other. That's something that I've taken into every job since then.

The advice that I would give to women is stand up for yourself and don't be afraid to also say your opinion in a meeting or in the room. I think it was really easy whenever I first started my career to kind of just lay low, not say my opinion, and just kind of ride the wave of what my corporate job was asking of me. When I started to surround myself with other female leaders that were really encouraging, or male leaders that were really encouraging and wanting to build my career up, I started to feel more confident in saying my opinion and speaking up. I would say you have a seat at the table, and it's okay to lean into it and to use it and be able to speak your voice at that table. Also, surround yourself with leaders that build you up.

I think opportunities and challenges kind of go hand-in-hand for social media marketing. Everything is constantly changing so quickly, which presents opportunities to create new things, be really creative, be fast, and lean into what is going on within the social media community. Also, in terms of AI, what everyone's talking about with AI, that's changing every day. So it creates a lot of opportunities to be able to be creative and create new content and kind of be fast-moving. But with this comes the same challenges of having to be quick, having to kind of lean in, and be okay with not having everything planned out. When it comes to social media marketing, a lot of it is just getting buy-in from people around you. Once you have it, it's gold, which I feel like I have it now, which has been really amazing. But social media marketing is still a new kind of marketing, and a lot of times, people don't see it as something that's a real driver for the business. Once you kind of get that buy-in from your business, which I'm very lucky that I'm in that position now, it's like the best place to be. But I think that can be a big challenge for a lot of social media marketers.

Integrity is very important to me. Whenever I was younger, my parents used to say that I would argue with people on the playground if something wasn't right, and they always thought that I was going to be a lawyer. I think integrity and doing the right thing is very important to me. Authenticity and courage is very important to me. Especially when it comes to marketing, it's really important to be authentic and to have the courage to kind of push things where you need to. I also really value being courageous and authentic in who I am in my normal, everyday life. I would say probably respect is really important to me. My mom - we're Canadian - and she has always been very big on respect and manners and being polite, and that's something that I've taken into my workplace and then also really value in my personal life.