Meet Victoria Vollo, Social Media Agency Owner & Independent DJ

Please introduce yourself — who you are, your background, what service you provide?

I’m Victoria. I own a social media agency called The Social Bodega, and when I’m not doing that, I DJ around Austin as VV. I’ve spent most of my career in social media. I started when the industry itself was still pretty new, and more than a decade later, I’m still fascinated by the same thing: people. What makes us pay attention. What makes us feel something. What makes us want to gather around an idea, a brand, a person, a place. That curiosity is a big part of what led me to start The Social Bodega. We help brands find their place in culture and build real communities around what they do. DJing came into my life much later, but I think I fell in love with it for a lot of the same reasons I fell in love with social in the first place. Music brings people together. It gives strangers something in common, even if it’s only for a few hours. And in Austin, it opened the door to this whole community of people I probably never would have known otherwise. The more I think about it, the less separate these two worlds feel. I think I just really love bringing people together. Sometimes I do it for a brand. Sometimes I do it in a dark room at midnight with very loud music.

How did you get started? What led you to this industry? Was it always the plan?

No. And I think I’m grateful there wasn’t ever a plan. I found social media at a time when everyone was still figuring out what it could be, and I was fascinated by it almost immediately. Suddenly there was this place where creativity, conversation, culture, and community were all happening at once. You could stumble into a corner of the internet you never knew existed, hear from someone whose life looked nothing like yours, discover an artist before the rest of the world did, watch an inside joke turn into a cultural moment, or find a group of people who cared just as deeply about some incredibly specific thing as you did. I loved how alive it felt. And I still do. Social is constantly changing because people are constantly changing. The language changes. The humor changes. The things we care about change. There is always something new to notice, understand, question or make. I think that's why, more than a decade later, I'm still curious about it. Funny enough, that same curiosity is also what eventually led me to DJing. Back in 2015, I worked on a partnership between Ray-Ban and Boiler Room, and it completely opened up my world to electronic music. I fell in love with the music and the culture around it, but becoming a DJ myself never even crossed my mind. I was perfectly happy being the person on the dance floor. It wasn’t until I moved to Austin, met my boyfriend and started going to Open Decks with him that I thought, wait, maybe I could actually do this too. So I learned. And a little more than a year later, I’ve played rooms I never imagined I’d play, met some of my favorite people through music, and now I’m hosting the same kind of open deck events that gave me my first chance. None of this was the plan. I think that might be the best part. I followed what made me curious, found people who made room for me, and now I get to make a little more room for whoever comes next.

What do you love most about the work? What keeps you motivated and inspired day to day?

I think what I love most is that I get to care deeply about things for a living. I get to care about an idea before anyone knows if it’s good. I get to care about the people I’m building something with. I get to care about the tiny details most people will never notice. And I get to watch something that once only existed in someone’s head become real. There are days when running a business is hard. There are days when I question myself, when an idea doesn’t work, when I’m tired, when I wonder if I’m doing any of it right. But then someone on my team has an idea that blows me away. A client puts something they deeply care about in our hands and trusts us to make it real. Someone takes a chance on themselves at Open Decks. I look out from behind the decks and see a room full of people dancing to a song I almost didn't play. And I think, wow, I get to do this. I get to spend my days making things, taking chances on ideas and being around people who are brave enough to do the same. Not everything works. Not every idea is good. Not every room dances. But when it clicks, there’s nothing else quite like it. And maybe that’s the whole point: to leave the world a little more alive than you found it.

What's something people don't see or know about your industry?

I think there’s a lot more uncertainty behind creative work than people realize. I can spend days thinking about an idea and still have a moment before I share it where I wonder if it’s any good. I can spend hours up late at night digging for music and crafting a set and still get nervous before I play it. Running a business doesn’t make that feeling go away either. If anything, the stakes just change. I think creative work asks you to be vulnerable over and over again. You have to have an opinion. You have to put something into the world that wasn't there before and essentially say, I think this is worth something. And then you have to be okay when someone else doesn't. Running a business adds another layer to that. Behind The Social Bodega is all the stuff nobody puts on Instagram. Payroll. Hard conversations. Losing work you wanted. Making decisions without knowing if they're the right ones. Being responsible for something that's bigger than just you. DJing asks for a different kind of trust. You can spend all night perfecting a set, but once you’re behind the decks, you have to let some of that preparation go. Listen to your gut. Believe in your choices. That’s what both have taught me: you don't become confident and then take the risk. You take the risk enough times that eventually you learn how to trust yourself.

What resources, tools, or support do you wish existed?

Both social media and DJing can feel strangely gatekept. There’s endless information online, but the things you actually want to know when you’re starting out are often the things nobody talks about. What should I charge? How did you get that opportunity? What did you mess up the first time? Who should I talk to? What do you wish someone had told you? I’ve learned the most from people who were willing to be honest with me. Not just about what worked, but about what didn’t. The people who answered the question I was almost embarrassed to ask, made an introduction, shared what they learned the hard way, or simply told me, “here’s how this actually works.” The people I admire most aren't just good at what they do. They're generous with what they know. That’s the kind of successful I want to be.

What do you want potential clients to know about you or your work?

I think brands have been taught to be afraid of being forgotten. So they post more. Say more. Make more. Chase every trend. Show up everywhere. But being everywhere isn’t the same as being remembered. That’s the work I care about. At The Social Bodega, we’re much more interested in figuring out what makes a brand worth paying attention to in the first place. What do you believe? What do you see differently? What could you make that nobody else could make quite like you? Because the internet doesn’t need another brand posting because Tuesday came around again. It needs brands with a point of view. That means sometimes our job is to make something. Sometimes it’s to push an idea further. Sometimes it’s to ask the uncomfortable question. Sometimes it’s to say, “I don’t think this is good enough yet,” and stay in the room until it is. We care about results, obviously. We’re running businesses, not art projects. But I’ve never believed creativity and performance have to live on opposite sides of the table. The best work can move people and move a business. We’re not here to fill feeds. We’re here to make brands matter to people.

Your contact info and links are on your Maisaic profile, is there anything else you'd like to share with the readers?

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for spending a little bit of your time with me. I think if there’s anything I’d want someone to take from my story, it’s that you don’t have to know where something is going before you begin. So much of my life right now exists because I followed something that made me curious. I started the business. I learned to DJ. I walked into rooms where I didn’t know anyone. I said yes to things I wasn’t entirely sure I was ready for. Some of those things became huge parts of my life. Some went nowhere. Both were worth doing. There’s probably something you’ve been thinking about starting. Something you keep telling yourself you’ll do when you have more time, more confidence, more experience, more whatever. You might never feel completely ready. Do it curious. Do it nervous. Do it before you know what it becomes. You can figure out the rest while you’re becoming it.