Shelby Dubin + Cat Golden
Content creators and founders of Social Rebel
Dubin is the Aesthetics Guru & Photographer/Videographer
Golden is the Brand Engagement Consultant & Marketing Expert (and nurse)
Connect: @socialrebelexperience, @thedubindiaries, @shelbydubinphotography, @catlgolden on Instagram; shelbydubinphotography.com, catgolden.com
How did you get started in social media?
Cat started as a nurse and built her first company, Nurses Inspire Nurses, a large nurses’ community, by posting on social media and creating organic content that fostered authentic connections. She grew the community to more than 100,000 nurses and scaled the e-commerce brand, which was acquired in 2024. While growing her company, Cat developed her skills over the course of five to six years and began working with national brands, helping them create content — and she loved it. She realized her innate gift was to connect with people and humanize the brand. Cat now does brand-engagement consulting and is the lead marketer for Social Rebel.
I am a professional dancer-turned-photographer. When dancing, I taught music and dance to kids all over the world — Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, Australia and the US — sparking my travel bug. I then moved to Paris for a job and while there, started a travel blog, the Dubin Diaries. I quickly learned that I did not like to write (hence no more blog) but with my love for visual arts, I continued to grow and build @thedubindiaries through Instagram. During that year I documented my travels all over Europe and even met friends through Instagram.
Although I’ve loved photography as a hobby since high school, I never had any intention of actually becoming a full-time photographer. But friends began to reach out asking to hire me. I started and grew my photography business in 2020, when the world unexpectedly shut down and dancing no longer seemed like a possibility. A quick post on Instagram and my company was officially launched. It scaled quickly to full time, growing through referrals and social media, and has opened the doors to work with companies ranging from local businesses to national brands. My eye for aesthetic and capturing authentic moments has led me to be the visual expert for Social Rebel.
What is Social Rebel?
Social Rebel exists to take the overwhelm out of content creation. We live by the motto ‘document don't create.’ Our goal is to make content creation fun again and give clients the confidence to show up authentically. We believe that people’s unique stories hold the key to effectively marketing their products and building genuine connections with their customers.
Cat and I have 20-plus years of combined content-creation experience. We happened to work together on a few projects and realized our energy was contagious. Everyone was asking how they could work with us, and it just made sense with our skills to step into the content creation space. We also saw a huge gap in the market where so many business owners were struggling with making authentic content. It was stressing them out instead of empowering them.
We joined forces to create Social Rebel to help clients ‘un-curate’ their content and stand out — to ‘rebel’ just a little. Cat is the ultimate hype-girl and idea-machine and I am the visual aesthetics guru, and we connected over our love for travel, coffee and lucky-girl energy. Magic seems to always happen when we're together. Our personal goal is to create a life we never have to ‘escape’ from, which is why Social Rebel embodies everything we love and believe in.
What makes you unique from other social media brand-builders?
We have Rebel in our name for a reason. It's not one-size-fits-all. We don't believe you have to follow trends or keep up with the algorithm. Trends come and go but authenticity builds a community that stays.
Who are your clients?
We work with a wide variety of clients, from Metro Detroit businesses to international brands such as Virgin Voyages. We've created content for Delta, Evolus, Nurse.com, BUBBL'R and even our very own Detroit Red Wings.
How would you describe your personal style?
We are lovers of all black (our personalities bring the color). Oftentimes we are dressing for travel or events and need to wear clothes that are both functional but represent our vibe and brand. Cat has a little edge and loves taking risks that match the vibe. I am 99 percent in head-to-toe Aritzia.
Tell me something potential clients should ask when hiring a social media specialist? What is the most common mistake you see?
A common mistake we see is that people know they need help but don't know why or what their goals are. Communication is huge when hiring any creative or social-media specialist. Being clear in your goals, expectations and desired outcomes can set everyone up for success.
Role models?
Some of our favorite people in the world of social include Alix Earle, Tezza, Gary Vee and Jesse Itzler. We also shamelessly love @therealsahd, @laurandnicolas, @grandma_droniak and all the tarot card readers on TikTok (if you know you know!).
What do you consider a major accomplishment in your life or career?
Cat is very proud of building and selling her company after six years. Personally, she is very grateful for getting divorced and moving across the country by herself when she was 22.
I am grateful to have lived my dream of performing for Disney and building an entire photography business from the ground up.
Dreams for the future?
We have a dream of working with Delta and if you know us, you know we won't stop until we make it a reality!
Katie Greenstone, Metro Detroit
Social media entrepreneur, founder of Market-G Social House and Want Honey
Connect: @marketgsocialhouse and @wanthoneywiththat on Instagram; @wanthoney on TikTok; wanthoney.club
How did you get started in social media?
I’ve always been into tech — I learned how to use an IBM Thinkpad when I was six years old. My love for learning new tech made early adoption of social media a no-brainer. I ran socials for free in college to get my bearings while I grew my personal online community, and the rest has been trial by fire. I’ve been in the field for six years and counting.
What are Market-G Social House and Want Honey?
Through experimentation and success with my personal social-media growth, a passion for community-building was ignited. This began my odyssey to make social media be and feel attainable to small and mid-sized companies through cool graphic creation, photos and videos. My main focus now is growing Market-G Social House, our content creation, social-media management and social-media strategy consulting firm.
What began as my personal social-media account, focused on food and Metro Detroit eateries, has grown into a community of more than 120,000 followers [check out her Detroit-focused merch at wanthoney.club]. When I’m not shooting content and strategizing for clients for Market-G, I’m shooting content for my Tiktok and Instagram, Want Honey — the community I’ve built where people can share our love for Detroit, fitness, food and travel. I’ve created such a loyal following over the last six years that it’s become more like a family than a brand. People and business-owners who are part of the community, even those I’ve never met, invite me to coffee, invite me to eat at new restaurants — I’ve met so many amazing people through it, and the coolest is when I run into someone wearing a Want Honey sweatshirt, because it symbolizes the immense support I’ve received through it all.
What's your goal?
Our mission at Market-G is to make social media feel more human. We want to push the boundaries of content creation for clients, especially those who feel lost, to find their unique voice within a sea of social-media trends.
What makes your company unique from other social media brand-builders?
We are by referral only, meaning our clients all sort of know one another by association in our community and they have a respect for one another. Social media is constant, and that mutual respect we have with our clients and in our community is critical for the success of being the small-sized powerhouse that we are. We also know it’s so easy to be paralyzed by unfamiliar processes, so our tried-and-true client onboarding and monthly strategy allows for us to get down to business efficiently and spend more time creating fun content that converts with our clients.
How would you describe your personal style?
Depends on the season for both business and fashion! Our business is cyclical, with our ‘busy season’ being March 1-Dec. 26, and we are always on and on-the-go, so I need to be comfortable. It’s also hard to get those photo angles of my clients in a stiff outfit! That being said, I match my clients’ energy, and each one has a different vibe. Generally speaking, I like to keep it light but professional, and I think that shows in our work as well.
Tell me something potential clients should ask when hiring a social media specialist? What is the most common mistake you see?
I tell this to everyone who comes in our ‘door’ (i.e. Zoom call): If, during your time interviewing a potential social-media manager, they are using definites and promising x results — run. There is nothing definite about social media because it is ever-changing and it takes some failure to see what works. The biggest mistake I see on the management-side is being too timid. Clients are coming to us for our expertise, and just saying yes to everything they want usually means you’re just responding rather than innovating, which ultimately does a disservice to the client. From the client-side, when a client has too much red tape, or thinks they won’t need to put aside time to make the relationship work, it stunts the creator from being able to be creative. Social takes work and collaboration on both ends.
Who are your clients?
Our client base is amazing and so incredibly diverse. We work with architects, artists, builders, interior designers, realtors, chefs/food, health/fitness, retail, foundations and hospitality, with a few outliers in between.
Role models?
My role models are my family — my mom/dad/sister, all creative in their own right, and all incredibly hard-working. One of my favorite social influencers, who I send all of my clients to review, is Timm Chiusano (@timmchiusano), a 40-something corporate creative based in NYC who practiced consistent, unique content creation and made his page feel like a home for so many. He is the definition of showing your human on social.
What do you consider a major accomplishment in your life or career?
That I’ve gotten myself to a place where I wake up in the morning and am excited to go to work every single day.
Emily A. Hay, Birmingham
Founder and CEO of Hay There Social Media, author and featured speaker.
Connect: @haytheresocialmedia, @emilyahay on Instagram; @emilyahay on TikTok; haytheresocialmedia.com
How did you get started in social media?
After studying marketing in college, I worked sales in corporate America. Despite having an entrepreneurial spirit, I had no role models to follow. Around 2009, I saw the potential of social media for businesses. My friend had a bakery and I leveraged my sales and marketing background to make her my first client, redirecting her Yellow Pages advertising budget to me to help her grow on Facebook.
What is Hay There Social Media?
In 2010 I launched Hay There Social Media, a boutique social-media agency. My team of other work-from-home women and I were the outsourced social-media team creating content, building community and more for a variety of B2C businesses.
After operating as an agency for a decade, I decided to expand and teach other women to run a freelance business as social-media managers. My business partner and I developed a custom curriculum for empowering women to build a flexible business in the in-demand social-media market. We teach the skills needed to be effective social-media managers and to run a freelance business. We then place the women we’ve trained with our agency’s clients.
What makes you unique from other social-media brand-builders?
Many social-media brand builders are focused in the influencer space. Hay There builds social-media managers who help businesses of all sizes build their social-media presence.
Tell me about Fair Play.
The message of Fair Play, a New York Times-bestselling book by Eve Rodsky, is ‘A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live)’ — this resonated with me and led to a social-media connection with the author. The book was made into a documentary, produced by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine and written and directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom; my husband, two daughters and I were filmed in our home in Birmingham for two years, documenting our journey to find balance of the domestic labor.
Who are your clients?
In addition to sending B2C clients to our community of freelance social-media managers, we also serve larger clients, clients that simply need a social-media strategy and we offer social-media training to businesses and associations.
What do you consider a major accomplishment in your life or career?
I recently emceed a global conference led by Tammy Zonker, an expert nonprofit fundraising thought leader, with incredible speakers, including Seth Godin, who is kind of a rockstar in the marketing space.
