Meet Alyssa Fagien of ATL Bucket List and Atlys Media in Old Fourth Ward

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alyssa Fagien.

Alyssa, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
When I first moved to Atlanta, I wanted to make sure I took advantage of being in a new, exciting city, so I created a personal bucket list of all the places, restaurants and activities I wanted to make sure I crossed off. At the time I didn’t know if Atlanta would be my forever home (now I’m pretty sure it will be! Haha) so this bucket list was important to me. I’ve always loved taking photos, so as I began exploring these places I started to accumulate a lot of cool shots. Instead of flooding my personal Instagram with food photos, I decided to create a new account to document my adventures through Atlanta. And ATL Bucket List was born!

I’ll be honest, I didn’t have a big master plan from the start. I had NO idea if anyone would follow or even care what I had to say. But after a few posts I saw the potential and decided to use my background in marketing and social media to make this into something bigger. I put myself on a posting schedule, starting refining my photography skills, researched relevant hashtags and started engaging like crazy. That’s when I really started to see the account take off. And it’s been the most exciting 2.5 years of my life.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The biggest struggle has definitely been time. Up until four months ago, I was working a full-time 9-6 job. And I’ll be honest it was difficult juggling it all. I’d work all day, have events most nights and then try to squeeze in a breakfast or lunch here and there to get more content. I respect all of the side hustlers out there so much – it’s not easy!

I recently started my own social media business Atlys Media which has given me more flexibility, but definitely not more time! If anything I’m busier now than I’ve ever been. But I love what I do – both with ATL Bucket List and Atlys Media – so it’s more than worth it.

Please tell us about ATL Bucket List and Atlys Media.
ATL Bucket List is a great resource for locals and visitors alike. The coolest thing is when someone tells me they found ATL Bucket List when looking to move to Atlanta and it confirmed their decision! Because that’s my goal: to show off how incredible this city is. I tend to focus on food (can you blame me with the amazing culinary scene we have?!), but I like to highlight events and activities, too. I like to make sure my captions are informative and really tell a story. I want people to be able to scroll through ATL Bucket List and get a good understanding of what each restaurant or business is all about.

After working in social media for a few years and building relationships with local businesses, I decided to take a leap of faith and start Atlys Media, an Atlanta-based social media agency. Atlys Media focuses on social media strategy, content creation, calendar planning, community management and social advertisements. It’s been incredible utilizing my background in marketing and experiences with ATL Bucket List to help local businesses maximize their efforts on social media. And I’ve been so lucky to work with some amazing businesses!

How do you, personally, define success?
I’m not going to lie, followers and likes are great haha. But to me the biggest “success metric” is hearing stories from people who follow ATL Bucket List about how the account helped them in some way – whether they were nervous to move to Atlanta, found out a great spot for their trip or saw Atlanta in a new light because of my posts. Success to me is creating a community of people who love this city as much as I do.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @atl_bucketlist || personal: @alyssafagien || Atlys Media: @atlysmedia

Image Credit:
Ramona King – professional photos of me
Jason Seagle – photo of me teaching the workshop

Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.