Influencing vs. Reality

This is the “I had no idea what Instagram influencing was going to be about, and it was nothing I expected” blog post. Buckle up, folks.

THE BEGINNING

I’ve talked about this before but let me just sum up to you real quick how I got here and why I feel I have a right to discuss this topic.

In March of 2020, I was let go of my Event Planning job. It was a true blessing because I had been wanting to get out of the industry anyway. It allowed me the opportunity to switch gears and turn to fashion which I was interested in pursuing and I felt the best place to start was creating my own niche Instagram for petite fashion. Fast forward to June of 2021 and I’m still here. I’ve taken leaps and bounds, putting myself out there on the internet, getting through the awkward stage of telling my family and friends and watching them cringe, enrolling into the Fashion Institute of South Florida to learn fashion design and sewing to even getting an actual job in the fashion industry working my way up to a seamstress assistant at a bikini brand!

I’m very grateful for my experiences so far and they have been nothing short of incredible. I feel I have a little bit of knowledge to the “inside world of influencing” that I want to share because.. well because I’m a transparent, no bullshit kinda gal and I want to tell anyone who may want to embark on this journey themselves what I definitely was not expecting when I started.

WHY I STARTED + WHAT I EXPECTED

I started my social media journey as a way to try and achieve my own financial freedom. When the pandemic hit and I was let go of my job, I didn’t have to go into an office, I didn’t have to report to anyone, I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do. BAM! I wanted that to last, and so I turned to social media because I knew there was a potential for money to be made and I had to understand how so many women were successfully doing it and doing it so well, that it was their full time job.

Instagram was something I had since college, but wasn’t something I was using for personal use prior to this, so when I made my business account and started looking at websites to host my blog, I was really lost but knew I wanted to do it the right way. I have to give a shoutout to Allison Lindstrom, who I ended up finding on YouTube. She was someone I felt was truthful and honest, and gave me really useful tips on how to start a blog that could be long lasting. She taught me how to think of it as a business and not as a hobby and she also taught me the important of owning your own content, unlike on Instagram which can be taken down at any given moment. Cheers to you, Allison!

The thought of creating unique and fresh content definitely intimidated me right off the bat, but I always thought that if I ever started pursuing social media to make money and to gain recognition, it would be easy for me to remain pure, authentic and different from the rest. This may be the biggest internal struggle I still deal with today.

I’ve been running my business Republic of G account for a little over 1 year now and looking back on when it all started, there was a feeling of information overload but it was exciting because I was learning the inner workings of a platform that everyone I knew was on. There was so much to learn and boy did I have a whole lot to learn.

WHAT I LEARNED: THE PHOTOSHOOTS

For one thing it made me realize how much I hated my closet and felt lost in knowing my ‘personal style.’  

Putting yourself out there and doing photoshoots has been a huge growing process for me. I grew in the sense that I was so embarrassed to take photos especially in public and just be in front of the camera in general. When I started I immediately felt judged from absolutely no one but everyone at the same time and nervous for my friends and family to see the posted photos on the gram. Regardless, it pushed me to step out of my comfort zone which is huge growth that should be recognized and celebrated. Now, I don’t give a fuck what people think when they see me in public… I’m gon’ get that picture! It was literally just practice (and still is) and doing something over and over and over again. The embarrassment fades and the confidence will build. I promise!

Getting these photos is work for sure, it’s not easy. I’m not going to say it’s necessarily hardddd (especially if you’re a creative or confident person by nature) but it’s very time consuming. To think of the concept, prep, get ready, go to the location, take the photos, review the photos, edit the photos, post every day, interact every day, show your best, it can be exhausting. All the more reason for every influencer out there to be getting PAID if you are working with a brand and creating content for them. This is KEY.

Instagram really is a business. It takes strategizing and planning and having a solid plan as to what you want to communicate through the photo, who you want your audience to be and what you want to stand for. Having a clear message while providing value is harder than you think. There are two sides to this coin. On one hand you have people who post outfit inspiration and gain a following for their style and even more, the ‘lifestyle’ they portray and for some, that’s enough. Others want to help others, to provide insight or educational material that people can really learn and grow from.

I had a moment in the beginning where I wanted to be a petite model and pursue that image on social media. It soon became a chore for me to pick out the perfect outfit and get all dolled up because in my normal day to day I don’t even wear make-up. Posing is a skill that needs to be learned (which is something I had to learn) and I soon didn’t love getting ready and going out to do a photoshoot. Looking back I wonder if it was because of a lack of confidence in what I was doing or just a having a feeling of “this isn’t me.” Posing is not easy. Practicing the poses and facial expressions in a mirror prior became a real thing that a lot of people do. You need to learn your angles and it takes time. I say this because before, I would definitely judge the girls I saw on social media “pretending to be a model” or “pretending to be an influencer” (which was wrong, and I just didn’t know what it really took).

I would never say I regret the time I spent only posting outfits and posing because it taught me so much and boosted my confidence. In the end, it was a good learning experience because it opened my eyes to see what I really wanted to move towards with more passion. And listen, I still go out and take pictures, or meet up with photographers because hey, it’s content! Now, I just have a better understanding of the balance I need in order to feel full-filled in what I’m posting online.

If you’re just starting an Instagram and want to take photos with a professional photographer, check out my previous post on my experience with Model Mayhem.

WHAT I LEARNED: THE COMMUNITY

The community online is real. There are wonderful women, bloggers and entrepreneurs that are willing to connect with you, support you and build relationships with you. I’ve genuinely found great people that I love following and that I’ve even had the opportunity to collab with. There are plenty of people out there that have Facebook groups or entire businesses about how to navigate growth on Instagram. I personally went to Gwen Lane and the Spark Society. I found it useful for a little while, just to understand the algorithm (which no one actually ever understands) and to learn the inner-workings of how the platform functions. Eventually I felt that I grew out of it but it was definitely helpful.

There are conversations that happen around the fact that when someone posts, if the comments and likes all come from other influencers and bloggers and it’s the same people commenting on every post then she must be in some sort of a boosting group. That could be true, which I definitely didn’t know existed prior to starting. How it works is you are invited to a group whether it be on Facebook, Instagram or Telegram and you can drop your post for the others in the group to like, comment, share whatever the rules are, in exchange for you doing the same for their post. Sometimes it’s between hundreds of other influencers and sometimes it’s between a small group of people who actually end up being friends and truly enjoy supporting each other. Regardless, I don’t totally disagree with this approach….

Now, this is a controversial topic to some extend because it becomes a conversation of, “is her audience and the engagement received authentic or not.” Here’s the thing, if you are on Instagram to partner with brands and get paid to do it, but the brands won’t pay you until you have a certain amount of followers even if you have really great content, and the Instagram algorithm won’t allow you to grow until your post has a high rate of engagement on it, then yea, I get why people are using these boosting groups to help propel them forward. And when they get to a certain follower count, they probably will abandon that group because they have enough exposure to keep growing on their own. I tend to look at it from the perspective of the Instagram algorithm is not always fair and this is a back door approach. Ethical? You decide.

WHAT I LEARNED: BRAND PARTNERSHIPS

I feel as though brand partnerships are also becoming a controversial yet interesting topic that I want to touch on. What I learned from Gwen is that if you want brands to take you seriously and work with you, it’s in your best interest to create a rate card and a Media Kit. A Media Kit will show your stats, say a little about yourself and what you stand for and show past work with other brands as a way to give yourself credit. This allows brands to see that this is a business for you that you take seriously and you deserve to be paid for the content you are about to agree to. It’s also totally okay to accept free merch in exchange for content and many people do that as well. There are also a ton of websites out there that you can sign up to be on as an Influencer and can be connected with brands who are doing campaigns and seeking out influencers. It’s more of a direct way to find a brand deal all in one place. Always be mindful to read over EVERY SINGLE WORD of a contract that a brand sends you before signing and never be afraid to negotiate what you think is fair or you deserve.

What I experienced personally, was a slew of brands sliding in to my DM’s or sending me emails that were scams, or that were real companies but wanted to send me sunglasses, or a phone case, or something on Amazon in exchange for a review. Now, that again can be great for some people, but it wasn’t at all want my niche was about - petite fashion. So I turned down almost all of them because it felt inauthentic to me and just didn’t jive with the image I was trying to portray. I’m sorry but you couldn’t pay me to promote another vitamin company that promises a whole lot of fluff (respectfully).

I had to take a break from Instagram, which slowed down by growth process and I’m definitely not where I was expecting to be when I started. It is all necessary though because it allowed me to figure out who I want to be on the platform and what information I want to share. I’m finding a happy balance between petite inspo, sewing and a lot more ideas that are coming soon! Taking a break is OK!! You will get back on and you will start to see growth again. It’s more worth it to take a break to figure out the type of meaningful content you want to put out there then to be posting just to post.

WHAT I LEARNED: THE EGO + INSTAGRAM

I always thought I would also be the person that wouldn’t be concerned or caught up with likes and how many likes and comments I got vs. other girls on the platform in my niche, but it’s nearly impossible. The comparison game is a constant battle and to me, honestly unavoidable. There are levels to this of course, and you can learn to control how much you let it affect you but when everyone is putting their best face forward and then getting brand deals and a lot of positive feedback it’s so easy to look at yourself and think, i’m not growing as fast as her so what am I doing wrong? I think the guiding light that has helped me through this obstacle is to just remind myself about my why, and how my why is different from their why. We are striving for different things, we are different people with different day to day lives. On top of that, supporting other women is important to me, and I will always celebrate someone else’s success! It’s just the healthiest way for me to be on the platform and not go absolutely insane.

There was an honest moment where I was like, this person already has so many likes she doesn’t need another from me, I’d rather go like a post that has less action or less likes / comments. That’s such a warped way of thinking and karma is so prevalent on social media. What I put out I receive back 10000%. If I genuinely like a post no matter how popular it’s been, I will like and comment and support that person because they simply did a good job.

 For anyone starting out, I think spending time to comment, like and follow those you already follow and also seeking out new people to follow within your community is key. You can’t jut post and ghost. You’ll never see results. You need to show love to receive love. Eventually when people hit hundreds of thousands of followers and more they don’t do these practices but it’s so crucial for someone that wants to grow and form a real community around them that supports them.

WHAT I LEARNED: BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN SUCCESS

Lastly, becoming your own boss, making your own schedule, being your own organized entity was harder than I thought. Just because I was super on top of it in my corporate job I thought it was going to be a no-brainer on how to be the most productive at home. The pressure can be a lot because it’s literally all on you. Your failure or your success is on you. If you promised yourself something was going to get done and you didn’t do it then the progress doesn’t follow and it’s on you. It’s different when you have a boss and a well-run company that’s been around for years and you have goals that need to be met for an agreed upon salary and responsibilities. When you’re on your own it’s such a different kind of shift I honestly wasn’t expecting. I thought everything was just going to miraculously happen for me. The work, the hours, the consistency, the organization and the networking are all things that I had to learn and stay on top of in a whole new way that works for me and the brand I’m trying to build and honestly, I’m still trying to figure it out.

IN CONCLUSION

Whew, if you’ve made it through that entire post, thanks for sticking around. I think what I’ve truly gotten out of being on Instagram is the type of presence I do and do not want to have on social media. I don’t want to be the person who is selling you hair gummies or the latest self tanner (and I’ve done that). I don’t want to sell you clothes just because someone sent it to me in exchange for a post (and if you’re getting paid for these collabs and it’s working for you then great) and I DEFINITELY don’t want to be sharing inauthentic content. That’s just me. What I do want to is support other small brands and ESPECIALLY fashion brands that are conscious about our environment. What I do want to create is a space for creativity and exploration, a place for interesting conversations and learning and eventually, a place for my petite clothing brand to live that will make women feel good, included and confident.

The journey has just begun.

Much love,

G