Want to be an influencer like Molly-Mae Hague? Be careful what you wish for…
TAKING endless selfies, travelling first class to glam locations and being sent fancy freebies is what being an influencer is all about, right? Wrong.
Let’s get this straight. I have a full-time job as the Fashion Director of Fabulous, so Instagram is a side hustle for me.
But five years ago, I decided I needed an online presence if I was to stay relevant in the fashion biz.
Now, I’m not asking for sympathy, I know I’m lucky to be able to make extra money on the side.
But little did I know it would become a time-consuming task that would end up winding up my own family and even see me come up against unwarranted abuse.
Love Islander Molly-Mae Hague knows all about the backlash an influencer can face, albeit on a much bigger scale.
She said in a podcast recently: “I’ve worked my absolute a**e off to get where I am now” and that “we all have the same 24 hours in a day”.
The comments were met with disdain, with critics calling the 22-year-old “tone deaf” and that “she literally went on a TV dating show and got brand deals”.
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But she has a valid point, becoming a successful influencer is hard work.
On the occasions I have been trolled it hasn’t been about how I look but because, as a woman of 50, I openly discuss the menopause as well as HRT and its benefits.
While I get hundreds of comments from women letting me know how much a post has helped them, there is the odd one that is negative.
“You disgust me. Accept you are growing old and get on with it. You are pathetic. Why are you chasing your youth? UNFOLLOWING NOW!”
It can shake you up a bit when people are so blunt and sometimes aggressive in the comments but I normally try to ignore the negatives and focus on the positive feedback.
My teenage daughter can spend hours gazing at her phone, looking at TikTok, but the minute I pick mine up I get the look.
Trying to fit my social media side hustle in around family life can be quite challenging. Quite rightly, my kids want my attention when I am not at work.
It is hard to explain to them that I need to use social media as a PR tool, which is important in an era when everyone is an expert online.
My teenager finds it especially difficult if I discuss something embarrassing or wear something a bit “out there” because some of her mates and even teachers follow me.
I have always been driven and I’ve explained to my two kids that working after hours, weekends and holidays is for all their benefit and can be the difference between us being able to afford a summer holiday or not — which can often be met with a massive eye roll.
IGNORE THE NEGATIVES
As well as chatting to hundreds of ladies on evenings and weekends, I also juggle homework, laundry, checking in on my folks and making sure that we are all ready to start work at the crack of dawn again the next day.
I can tell you, despite naysayers who think it’s easy, it makes my Saturday supermarket job in my early twenties seem like a walk in the park.
Before I started posting, I noticed that the influencers I followed looked like they were living their best social media lives — being flown around the world, a cocktail in one hand and the latest iPhone and designer handbag in the other.
And from what I could see, they were being paid handsomely for it.
I have to admit, I was a little bit jealous, not of their material possessions or even the big pay cheques that I heard whispers of, but of their success in this newfound media. I felt like a dinosaur.
But I thought: “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!”
Molly-Mae’s role as an influencer didn’t exist when I was new to the job market in the Nineties — and if it had, I wouldn’t have believed it.
Fast-forward 30 years and here I am doing exactly that.
I didn’t have a clue how to use Instagram at first, but I remember thinking: “All they have to do is post a picture of themselves standing against a wall . . . It’s hardly rocket science.” How wrong I was.
It’s not comparable with a nurse working under immense pressure, or a farmer who has to work every single day of the year. But it can be a full-on, full-time job, with the option of unlimited unpaid overtime.
Mates of mine, who do it full-time, work around the clock to grow their audience numbers, putting in unsociable hours and never switching off from the app.
Now, Molly-Mae is earning big bucks. It was reported this week that she is paid £400,000 a month by Pretty Little Thing to be the fashion brand’s Creative Director.
She admitted appearing on Love Island in 2019 was a “business move” — and it’s paid off. But that does not mean she hasn’t put in the work to get where she is now.
Before a brand will pay you to produce paid content, you have to grow your audience, which can take years and comes from nothing but unpaid hard graft.
Most people start influencing as a side hustle and if you looked at how many unpaid hours they put in before getting a big pay cheque from a paid partnership, they would probably be earning less than the minimum wage from Instagram.
CRYING ON THE FLOOR
If I post stills and reels three or four times a week I can spend anything up to eight to 12 hours producing the pictures and writing the captions. What you see in an Instagram reel — a 15-second video — can take eight hours to produce and edit.
Ten outfit changes and five hours of filming later, I am normally a hot menopausal mess on the floor in my bedroom, crying into a heap of clothes. Oh, and then there is the other three hours of editing . . .
Unlike in my day job as a fashion director, with social media, it’s just me. I am the “model” (I say that in the loosest sense of the word), photographer, stylist, art director, glam squad and CEO of TraysLounge (@trayslounge).
It’s multi-tasking at the next level.
You’ve also got to be prepared to always be “on” — the more you engage with your audience, the more desirable you are to brands. It’s a good job I love to chat.
If you eventually do get a paid job, you’ll need to know how to write a contract, negotiate a fee and manage everyone’s expectations. You need to be a businesswoman.
Quite often brands want the content yesterday, which means dropping all plans, booking a day off work, spending three hours ironing, and making one end of the living room look like it should be in an interiors magazine — while the other end looks like an explosion in a clothes factory.
Being successful on Instagram isn’t just a case of standing there, smiling in a nice outfit in front of a wall and accepting lots of freebies.
It is producing your own online publication every week with engaging content, inspirational images, catchy videos and live chats.
I know I could never make a full-time living out of it, but I’m convinced it’s kept me relevant in an industry I love.
