IMAGES: VERONICA SAGREDO
A chat with . .
RENEE DEMBOWSKI
FOUNDER & CEO
SOCIAL BUTTERFLY
MARKETING
Thirty minutes into my chat with Renee Dembowski, the founder and CEO of Social Butterfly Marketing,
I had to make a point to change the course of the conversation. Renee had just spent the best part of a
glass of wine firing questions at me.
“I love to ask questions,” Renee
laughs, as I pull her up on it. "I
worked at Customs once upon a
time.”
So how did this former St
Mary’s student move from being a
Public Servant, to an innovative,
award winning trailblazer in the
exciting, world of social media?
"I was working for the Department
of Defence at the Navy Base, in a HR
and Business Performance role,”
Renee explains. "I loved my job! I
love analysing data-and using the
results
to
make improvements
to systems and processes.”
A few years into the role I fell
preg-nant, and while I was on
maternity leave, I was advised that
my role was being relocated to
Townsville. Being a Cairns girl born
and bred, moving to Townsville with
a newborn was not an option for me.”
“This whole period of my life put
me into a bit of spin, honestly. If
that hadn’t happened, I would
probably still be in that same job!”
"Around the same time, my
husband, Clint was in Real Estate
and he was looking
for
an
alternate marketing solution, rather
drop.”
"We started a newsletter called the
'Bayview Bulletin'. It was an 8-page,
black and white newsletter, which we
delivered to about 3,000
homes
in
Bayview
Heights
and
surrounds. It had
community stories,
recipes, new babies
born in the area -
that sort of thing. I
loved the sense of
community it created in
the suburb."
social media client. It was a local club,
they asked me to put together a two
week strategy. I’m a real planner so I
went completely overboard,” Renee
laughs.
I wasn’t given
a textbook
to study
Local businesses realised the news-
letter’s popularity, and enquired about
advertising opportunites.
“More and more local businesses
were advertising, and with any profits,
we'd put on community events, like
open-air movie nights and fun family
days which we called ‘Picnic in the
Park’."
"I had a full month’s strategy
prepared and basically
created an unpublished
Facebook page, with a
month of content planned
out so I could demon-
strate how the page would
look.”
“They were impressed and
their support and encouragement
basically kick started my social media
career.”
"At that time, there were only a hand-
ful of social media marketers in
Cairns. It was an exciting time in the
industry!“
"In 2015, I conceptualised the Virtual
Fashions on the Field. An innovative
social media campaign which attract-
“I started helping businesses create ed enormous engagement across the
their own Facebook Page, and realised country.”
I was really interested in social media.
I got a real b