Forty Under 40: Stephanie McCratic

It’s safe to say Stephanie McCratic was an early adopter of social media and mobile devices.

Friends used to ask her why she wrote a blog, why she needed the latest tablet, and what was that thing called Twitter.

That was back in the mid-2000s, in the social media stone ages, when people like McCratic were learning how to make fire.

Now a seasoned explorer of the online universe, McCratic is confident serving as a guide. Her latest enterprise, Acorn: An Influence Company, reaches out across all forms of social media — Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and the blogosphere, among others — in search of the right people to endorse products and services.

McCratic taught herself how to blog nearly 10 years ago, when she chronicled the illness and death of her first husband, Marshall Johnson, on a site called CaringBridge.

That was the beginning, but certainly not the end. She founded the blog Evolved Mommy in 2008, became the social media strategist at Evolved Brands in 2011, and in 2012, connected with John James, the wunderkind founder of Acumen Holdings.

And it was during her time at Acumen — the company grew by 400 percent in 2012-2013 — that McCratic realized the immense potential of not just social media, but of corralling a national network of influencers and aligning them with the optimal crowd and the optimal campaign.

“This is my thing, this my jam, this is what I was born to do,” she said.