Camp Social: Inside the Branded Weekend Getaway for Adults

Liv Schreiber, 28, was a latest school graduate working in New York Metropolis, constructing companies and a social media following, when she observed that lots of content material in her orbit centered on “maintaining with the Joneses” and summers spent with “slick-back buns” within the Hamptons. “I used to be like, You understand, I actually simply want I might leap within the lake and put on no make-up and return to sleepaway camp,” Schreiber tells Entrepreneur.

^{Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Camp Social. Liv Schreiber.}

Schreiber was well-positioned to carry her thought to life. In 2019, she launched Model Caffeine, a digital advertising company, and in 2022, she based Scorching and Social, a social neighborhood that hosts meet-up occasions the place folks of their 20s and 30s could make new mates.

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The 2-time founder already knew the right way to harness the ability of branding and social media to forge in-real-life connections, and in Might 2023, she was decided to use that experience to Camp Social. Schreiber’s first camp occurred only a few months later, in August, with 150 girls in attendance.

^{Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Camp Social}

Since then, Camp Social has solely grown in reputation. The upcoming camp, which value $880 per ticket and will likely be held August 22-24, offered out in 24 hours. Camp Social has additionally expanded to supply two camps per yr as an alternative of 1; the primary fall weekend will likely be September 26-28.

“ I’m agency in my perception that that is what everybody’s going to be doing in a number of years.”

Schreiber has only one rule for Camp Social’s campers: Everybody comes solo and leaves as mates. “It is a lunch desk the place everyone seems to be welcome to take a seat,” she says.

Camp Social hosts girls ages 21 and older (the oldest camper to date was 65) and bunks them by age. Nonetheless, inter-generational friendships are additionally frequent, as campers meet new mates primarily based on the actions they select all through the weekend, Schreiber says.

^{Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Camp Social}

The price of a ticket to Camp Social covers the weekend’s bills, from the bus journey from New York Metropolis to the Pocononos — an “iconic” begin throughout which individuals are “singing, dancing and assembly one another,” Schreiber says — to the intensive record of instructor-led actions, from boating to archery, yoga, candle-making and extra, and branded goodie luggage, which embrace quite a lot of merchandise.

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“I  wish to deal with it like an influencer model journey for the buyer,” Schreiber says. “ I’m agency in my perception that that is what everybody’s going to be doing in a number of years. I have been shouting right into a black gap, making an attempt to [get] manufacturers to know that influencers aren’t shopping for their merchandise — shoppers are.”

Schreiber stresses that Camp Social solely options merchandise that she actually believes in and has turned down people who aren’t the suitable match. A few of Camp Social’s sponsors embrace Dunkin’, fast-casual restaurant chain Dig Inn and nonalcoholic wine model Fre.

^{Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Camp Social}

Schreiber is at all times looking out for brand new choices in service of what she calls “crucial” a part of Camp Social: Facilitating neighborhood and new friendships. “We are able to provide every thing and any model on the earth, however on the finish of the day, it is concerning the relationships,” Schreiber says.

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“Folks have to know [that] connection is so necessary. Offline.”

“Group” is the brand new buzzword for a lot of manufacturers constructing a presence on-line — and Schreiber has blended emotions about it. “It makes me each joyful and unhappy as a result of typically folks go into it with the fallacious intentions or the intention of making one thing simply to promote,” she says.

Lately, it is authenticity and storytelling that make folks and types stand out, in keeping with Schreiber.

On her personal social media accounts, Schreiber notices that the movies that carry out the perfect are these by which she delves into the “why” behind her beginning Camp Social — and the real-life connections shaped. A number of mates she met at Camp Social attended her latest wedding ceremony. One in every of them gave a speech; one other signed the ketubah.

^{Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Camp Social}

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In an period when many People wrestle to domesticate significant relationships greater than ever earlier than — 21% of U.S. adults really feel lonely, and 73% attribute it to know-how, in keeping with a latest report from Harvard Graduate College of Training — in-person connection stays Schreiber’s major aim.

“There’s an enormous model story that we will inform right here,” Schreiber says, “however the principle factor that folks have to know is that connection is so necessary. Offline. We have to make the most of social media as a instrument to be social and deal with the loneliness epidemic.”

This text is a part of our ongoing Ladies Entrepreneur® sequence highlighting the tales, challenges and triumphs of working a enterprise as a girl.

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