Not a lot of people really understand what goes into my job and what I do. I think people just see me as an influencer – which, in their eyes, means I take pictures for a living and I post them. But it becomes so much more than just taking a few pictures and posting them online.
Everything has to be thought about: everything you do, everything you say and everything you post has to have so much planning and time behind it. Fran and I, we’re never not on the phone to each other. We’re never not texting. It’s a constant conversation about what the plan is for today, what we’re doing and what we’ve got to do to get to the next step.
So, let me explain how it all works …
I’m not a morning person. I never have been. I never will be. You know when you wake up for an early-morning flight and you have a tummy ache, and your body’s asking, What are you doing to me? You want food, but you don’t want food – you’re all over the place. I’m like that every morning! During the week, my days can start quite early – I might be getting up at 5am for a 7am call time (the start time) on a shoot, or have a meeting first thing, and recently I’ve been going to the gym for 6.30am, to fit it in. But if my schedule allows I’m not a morning exerciser; I’d prefer to go to the gym later – whenever I can, really – just for an hour.
My work really varies by what I’m doing on a given day. The days where I’m shooting for Instagram will be days that I really need to make sure I’m organised and plan, so that I can fit in the time to set up and get photos. Other days, it’s more a case of what I get done in that day, I’ll get done in that day! In the group chat with my management team, it’s a constant conversation about what we need to do and when: every Sunday evening, the girls who work with Fran will send through a schedule for the week, and every day it will say where we need to be and what we need to get done.
When I was just influencing, 100 per cent of my week was getting content, pictures, filming YouTube content or editing my YouTube. Now, I think that part makes up around 20 per cent of my days or my week. My working week is so much more than just my content. I spend a lot of time strategising, in meetings, discussing finances, focusing on my creative director role at PLT and running my false tanning business. I oversee many things, and maybe that’s a side of me that people don’t see because there’s so much work that goes into the behind the scenes of my platforms now. That’s where Fran comes in, to make sure my schedule is organised so that I can give all the things I work on my undivided attention. I think it’s important to be productive, not just busy. If you manage your time well, you can be the most productive with the time you have in the week. I feel a sense of achievement at the end of the week knowing I’ve done everything I can.
With that said, I still spend a lot of my working week on my socials: I’m in charge of my whole Instagram, my DMs, my YouTube – I create and edit everything and haven’t handed it over to anyone else. I’m too much of a perfectionist for that! Each week, I like to spend two to three days purely catching up on content and making sure that I’m taking outfit pictures, filming YouTube videos, and really engaging with my audience – making sure they can see enough of me so they feel they know me, they can relate to me and they want to invest themselves in my life. Because that’s how you build a relationship and develop loyal followers – when they feel they really know you and understand you.
But I don’t just have those two or three days and then think, That’s it, that’s my socials done! I’d say five days out of seven, I’m taking content for Instagram. A lot of influencers will take all their content in one day for a whole week – they’ll shoot 10 Insta images and then that’ll be their week’s content done. That doesn’t work for me. I have to take maybe two images maximum in a day – that will be photos for two grid posts, involving two different outfits, two different looks. That’s because I like to change up my hair, change my make-up, and also it just looks a lot fresher and more current if you post as you’re going about your life – which my followers respond to best, as I’ll explain – so I don’t like backing up content.
So, if I get two posts in a day, I’m pretty happy with that. And if I get one, that’s still an achievement for me. I think people just don’t realise that Instagram content is not something that is super easy to create. On the simplest level, one thing I do find hard is the pressure during my week to always look nice. I love having my dress-up days but I also love wearing my Harry Potter PJs and being comfy. It’s all about balance. But I’m taking pictures for my Instagram pretty much every day, so I typically do need to make an effort, do my hair and look put together so that I get the best images possible.
More traditional photo shoots, for the brands I work with or my own brand, Filter by Molly-Mae, represent another massive element of what I do. I’d say I normally do about two to three shoots a month, but then I could have some months where I won’t shoot at all. It just depends what we’ve got on. But again, it isn’t just about turning up on the day and that’s it; everything needs to be planned out and prepared. For me, it starts about a month before, because I will be eating well, working out – I prep my body to feel confident in myself, so that mentally I’m in the right frame of mind. With PLT, I have a huge input into the whole shoot – locations, dates, the hair and make-up artists, and so on – so I plan it all with them. Likewise with Beauty Works I’ll be checking the running of the shoot. If I’m preparing for another sort of job – say, if I’m doing a campaign with a brand – it’s about doing your research so that if someone asks you a question you really have a full understanding of what you’re talking about.
Another big time commitment is that I have a lot of meetings: for example, I go into PLT quite a few times a week for face-to-face meetings with the team. And then I’m on FaceTime to Fran for at least three hours every day, discussing work. I can’t be in every meeting that she is, so for, say, a contract negotiation, she will discuss it with me afterwards and see what I think. If she’s been talking to a brand, she might say afterwards, ‘This is what we’ve come up with: that you do four TikToks for this brand over the next year. What do you think?’
I will have a think and might reply, ‘Let’s say three – because then I can set this amount of organic TikToks in between.’ I’m always thinking about what my Instagram followers and other social media followers see, to make sure I get the right balance of paid content and non-paid content. I need to make sure I have enough space to post as much natural, organic non-paid content as I can so that my sponsored content never starts to feel too much for them.
That’s really the most important thing for an influencer to remember: to keep posting that natural, organic content that first brought people to you. That’s what makes you grow. And I think about growing every day; as an influencer, you never want to stop growing – you never want your following to plateau or decrease. At the moment, my daily new followers on Instagram average in the five figures, because of how frequently I post.
Weekdays and weekends can roll into one for me because I work from my phone, so that I can kind of pick and choose the days that I hit hard, and those I don’t hit so hard. And a weekend doesn’t mean I’m not posting on Instagram: I post every day. So, on a Saturday I normally post in the morning because then if people go out in the evening, they won’t miss it. And then on a Sunday, it could be in the morning or in the evening – but here’s a tip: Sundays are the best day to post, because it’s not such a busy day for your followers, since everyone’s at home having a roast or doing whatever. That’s why you’ll find a lot of influencers will make big announcements or save their best content for a Sunday, because it gets the highest engagement. Monday to Thursday is usually good, but Fridays and Saturdays, when people are heading out, tend to be not the best days to post.
So, that’s the overview of what a week might look like for me. But let me tell you more about what I see as key: my socials. Because every move I make on Instagram, from every single Story to every single post, is done with intent. It’s about keeping the vibe chilled and relatable, but also being conscious that what I post is going to make an impression on nearly 6 million people, so it needs to be a positive one. It’s a similar story with YouTube, where I now have 1.6 million subscribers. I think people just don’t realise the sheer amount of organisation and thought that goes into it all!
So, let me share how it all works …
My Instagram is everything to me – I see it as the main strand of my business. Everything I do, from my tanning brand to my work with other brands, is shared on Instagram to let people know about it. I don’t really use any other method of promotion.
Instagram, as my key platform, is also how I promote my YouTube channel. As you’ll have gathered, I don’t use my platforms in isolation – it’s all about working them in a joined-up way. So, every time I make a new YouTube video, I’ll post about it on my Instagram, which takes my followers over to my YouTube channel. And likewise, on my YouTube, I’ll let them know that I have just posted something on my Instagram. I’m always using each platform to promote what I’m doing on another platform, to make sure my followers are seeing everything.
Momentum is key to being successful on Instagram. It’s not a job that you can take a lot of time off from, because the minute you stop posting is the minute you lose that momentum you’ve built. You have to be consistent, so people think to themselves, Oh, I’ll go and see what so-and-so is doing today, what she’s wearing today.
I try to post on my grid every day. If I miss out on two, three, even four days, it isn’t the end of the world. And I like to post in the evening because, personally, that performs better for me (although on a Friday or Saturday I’d probably try to catch people in the morning instead. And if I ever take a two-day break, I would probably do that over the Friday and Saturday).
But even if I’m not posting on my grid, I do try to always post on my Stories, just so people know that I’ve not disappeared. Sometimes, I find if I take a week off, my followers will say, ‘We missed you!’ or ‘Where are you?’ So a break is not necessarily a problem. But after about three days of not posting, I do start to stress a little bit, thinking, I need to get a picture up! And if I took too long or did it all the time, I feel like people would say, ‘She’s not bothered anymore about supplying us with content, so sack her off!’ It can feel like pressure to always be posting.
How I deal with that is that I’m always sharing what I’m doing – if it’s not necessarily creating an Instagram post for my main feed, I’ll be putting up Stories and sharing things that way. I always think influencers that don’t make the most of Stories are really missing out, because it’s a different way to connect with your audience on Instagram, rather than just showing a highlight reel in terms of that one grid picture a day. You’re showing a bit more behind the scenes – it’s a little bit like YouTube. So, I’ll take photos and video for my Stories as I go about my day: snap a quick picture before I’ve got to get on a work call, say, that will let people know I’m still alive! I think that’s the best way to build a good relationship with your followers: keep your sharing as frequent as possible. There is a reason why so many influencers give the same Instagram advice, which is to stay consistent, upload as much as you can and share as much as you can.
Recently, I’ve got into a habit of posting photos and videos on my Instagram Stories at the end of the day, rather than as I go: sort of stocking up all my potential Stories for the day and then uploading them all at once. It’s partly for security reasons, so people don’t know exactly where I am, but also so I can sit down in the evening, sift through what I’ve taken over the course of the day and decide, OK, that will look good, and then I can post that. Everything that goes on my social media is carefully orchestrated, but in a natural way at the same time, if that makes sense.
Even when I’m not creating content physically, I’ll be thinking about it. Mentally, I’d say 100 per cent of my time is focused on giving people what they want, because it’s constantly on my mind. There’s never a minute of my day where I’m not thinking about it, because that’s my full-time job. And it’s definitely taken me a long time to work out what works for my Instagram and try different things to narrow it down. These days, I see my feed as a diary of what I’m wearing, what I’m doing and where I’m at.
One of the defining things about my content is that it’s so mixed, visually – my feed doesn’t have any theme, colour code or fixed aesthetic. Instead, whatever I want to post, I’ll post, which I like because sometimes when a feed looks too perfect, it’s not relatable and it doesn’t feel like real life. As a user, I like to scroll down a feed and see someone in different places and in different outfits, and for each photo to look different. That’s why, if you go on my feed, it’s quite colourful and varied. Don’t forget, I’ve been posting for years, so I need to keep it fresh!
I love how effortless it feels to post whatever I want that day – I love it when a feed feels unplanned and easy-going.
I tend to keep my posting style pretty simple. I put together an outfit I love and find a spot to shoot it that feels organic or fits with what I’m doing that day. I think that’s why people engage with my content. They like how my posts aren’t too perfect or preened; the outfits that I wear are not hard to achieve, the make-up I wear is not hard to do, and the hair isn’t either – it’s all quite relatable, I feel, and I think that’s why I have such a variety of people following me. That young girl can copy my outfits, but maybe her mum or auntie wants to have a look, too.
Another aspect of my Instagram style that has remained constant is that it’s never been at-home content. What I mean by that is, some people’s photos really perform well when they take them right next to a white wall or in their living room or elsewhere in their house. But mine don’t: I always say that my content performs better when I create it while I’m doing the things that I would be doing normally, out and about, like getting a coffee with my boyfriend. For example, I’ll post a picture if I’m at the warehouse for Filter by Molly-Mae, so people can see that I’m working, and I post a lot of travel pictures when I’m away. When I’ve gone away on trips, the photos I took in those places performed really well because they were a little bit different.
People just seem to respond better if I take content while I’m doing different activities, at different locations, and they just don’t really like it when I’m at home!
I try to take my Instagram content on days where I’m actually out doing something already. I just feel it’s more relatable.
That’s partly why I don’t really plan my content in advance. A lot of influencers do: there are apps you can use to plan and perfect it all in a grid, so you know how it’s going to look. But I find that my followers interact better with me when I’m a bit freer – when I wear whatever I want to that day, and I post it. Plus, I can’t work too far in advance because I end up hating the pictures I’ve taken if I don’t post them straight away! So I work to a very short timescale – that just works best for me.
Of course, sometimes there might be a really cool location in Manchester city centre where I want to shoot, or I’ll find inspiration for a location on Pinterest or via other influencers. But I always feel that, to my followers, it can be a little bit obvious I’ve specifically taken the time to go to a location to get a picture. And I like to be original – but not too original because people don’t want to see anything too different from your usual vibe and theme. Once you’ve established yourself a bit, they’re following you for a reason: because they like what you already post. So, they don’t want to see you mix it up too much.
As for the practicalities, these days, it’s two girls called Ellen and Erin, who both work for Fran, who help me with my pictures. They’ll come to mine pretty much every weekday and help me with my content. Obviously, I can film an Instagram Story by myself, but if there’s a very lengthy brief from a brand for a sponsored Story, then it becomes a two-person job, in terms of making sure that I cover everything in the brief. And in terms of grid posts, you can’t really take those kind of photos – glossier, rather than more casual selfies – by yourself!
That’s something that I really struggled with when I first moved to Manchester: finding someone to take pictures of me. I was lucky to make a friend at an event who was also an influencer, and we’d sometimes meet up to take pictures of each other, because she didn’t have many people in Manchester who could do it for her, either. These days I have Tommy, but of course he’s got things to do as well, so I can’t always rely on him to take pictures. I’d say he takes 20 per cent of my photos, and the girls 80 per cent. Really, I couldn’t do what I do without Ellen and Erin nowadays, because it would be physically impossible.
Not realistic is not relatable!
At the start of every single photo session, I will first take a reference picture of the background, showing what I want it to look like in terms of what to include and what not to include, so that whoever is taking the photos can follow that as a template. That reference picture also lets me check that the background is going to look right with my outfit, that it’s not too busy, that the lighting is good. So, at the start of every single photo session, there’s always a picture of the background taken without me in it.
Then I just jump in the middle of that, and that’s going to be the shot! I’ll pull a bit of a stern face – I’m not typically smiling – and start moving, telling whoever’s my photographer: ‘Just keep tapping away, I’ll keep moving, and we’ll get the shot.’ About every 20 pictures, I’ll quickly look through and see if I’m doing the right thing, favourite a few, and get back to it. And I’ll keep checking the photos as I go, so that I know what to change or how to stand.
In terms of kit, it’s always an iPhone – never a professional camera. If I were ever to use a professional camera to take a picture, the post wouldn’t perform well. Again, that’s just what I’ve learned from my time on the platform: not realistic is not relatable. People want to feel they could create a similar image themselves if they had a spare afternoon. If not, they don’t engage with it – and they really can tell if I’ve used a professional camera, even if I’m not in a studio! One year, I launched a collection with photos taken on a professional camera, and it didn’t perform quite the way it would if it had been taken on an iPhone. That’s why I’m so glad I had built up my audience before I got the exposure of going on a TV show, because it was at that stage where I learned what worked and what didn’t. Now, when I’ve got millions of followers, I don’t make those mistakes.
Before I can post the photo, though, I’ve got to have a caption … and captions, oh my God, are the bane of my life. Honestly, Erin and I have this running joke that I constantly ask her, ‘Can you think of a caption?’ and we can never think of anything! But I do think that a caption can change how a post performs. If you have a good, witty caption that goes with the photo, I do think it can make people engage with it a bit better. Sometimes I’ll scroll down the Explore page, for inspiration, or I’ll scroll down my own feed and see what I’ve used ages ago that maybe I could reword. It all depends on the picture, but it can be a bit frustrating, because you’ve got the photo already, made sure it looks great, and then you can sit for about an hour thinking about the words!
My overall strategy is to keep it short and sweet, and to go with the aesthetic of the picture. By that I mean I normally just base the caption on what type of picture it is: for example, if it’s an outfit-focused picture, then maybe I’ll mention something about the pair of shoes I’m wearing. Or, say, if I’m wearing an all-black outfit, I’ll refer to that. Or if I’m in a particular city or destination, I might talk about where I am. I don’t like to tell a full story in the caption; I think people just want to read something quickly, look at the picture, and then double-tap it and swipe past.
That’s what works for me. I know some people find that their audience loves to read what they’re doing that day in great detail, down to what they’ve had for breakfast. I’ve never tried that, but I’ve noticed before when I’ve put up a photo relating to a launch with a long caption talking about how much work I put into it and that kind of stuff, people haven’t tended to engage with it. And I personally, don’t love to read long captions. I think, I can’t be bothered reading that, and I just scroll past! So, you have to find what works for you and the audience you’re building.
And I don’t tend to use hashtags anymore. That was the known way to grow your audience, back in the day: you hashtagged the crap out of your picture! Which meant anyone clicking on a hashtag you’d used could find your content that way. But hashtags are not really a thing now in the same way; after all, people can just go to their Explore page instead to find content they’ll enjoy.
YouTube definitely feels like a very separate part of my business, for the simple reason that it takes so much time, especially when you do everything yourself, as I do. Whenever I post a YouTube video, it always feels like a moment of accomplishment for me, after that process of going from nothing to filming a video, editing it and posting it. I love when I get to the end result, I post a video and can pat myself on the back: Another one up! I always feel really happy with myself for doing it.
My YouTube channel plays a massive part in building a relationship with my followers. To go on my channel and to actually see things that you don’t see on my Instagram means that I’m not just sharing a highlight reel of my life; I’m sharing the behind the scenes, too. I’m showing the good days, but also the not so good days – the days where I’ve had a breakout on my face as I come on my period, or I’ve had an argument with my boyfriend. I’m very transparent and real on there, and I think that’s why on Instagram – where things might look a bit glossier – people still relate to me well: because they know that not everything is perfect, that not everything is always what it seems. Nothing’s a secret on my YouTube, and people know that they’ll get the real, raw version of me, who has bad days and good days, which I think makes me more relatable.
And I love YouTube, because it’s such a positive platform, and my subscribers are really supportive and uplifting. People come to your YouTube when they’re really invested in you, and they care about you as a person. Because why else would you watch a 25-minute vlog of someone’s holiday? If you’re investing your time in watching a long video of someone’s day, you’re really only doing that because you want to see what they’re up to and hear what they’re talking about (unlike other platforms, where it’s easier to just ‘hit and run’). I honestly would say that for every one negative comment I get on YouTube, there will be about 99 positive ones.
YouTube is definitely my favourite platform because I feel like the following is really supportive on there – everyone’s so lovely.
I struggle with it, though, because it is so time-consuming. I’ve never hired a video editor because I don’t feel comfortable with someone having that control over that really vulnerable, uncut side of my life. I like to be able to control completely and utterly what goes out to an audience. Plus, I am a complete perfectionist in terms of what I create and put out! So, while it’s time-consuming, I film and edit all my videos myself from scratch.
I don’t script them at all. I actually vlog really off the cuff – whatever I’m doing that day, I’ll just pick the camera up, film it and talk away. You don’t need to worry too much about what you’re talking about, either. People absolutely love to just hear you waffle on about your life, and I know that they do because I love it myself – I like YouTube channels where I can really get into someone’s life and feel like I know them through their channel. I like hearing the nitty-gritty!
I have loads of favourite YouTubers that I watch: Patricia Bright’s still a favourite of mine; CC Clarke (CC Clarke Beauty); Jaclyn Hill; Rachel Leary; Anastasia Kingsnorth. I’ll be doing my make-up and put one of their videos on in the background and I’ll just feel a bit comforted, like I’m not sat in the room alone.
And I love just flicking through my homepage and watching anything that looks good. YouTube used to be more about sit-down videos, just talking, talking, talking! These days, I prefer watching vlogs – I feel like vlogs are really where the platform has moved on to now. By that I mean more of a fast-paced, day-in-the-life format – where you can really see what someone’s up to in their day, where they go, what they do, and where every scene is different. That’s what performs best for me these days: vlogs will get my highest engagement compared to sit-down videos. I do love a haul, don’t get me wrong, but after you’ve watched hauls for years, it’s understandable that people are all about the next big thing, which right now is vlogs.
I like hearing about somebody else’s ups and downs, too; if I’m not having a great week, it’s comforting to realise they’re going through something similar. Or, if they’re having a great week, you get a boost too! You get really invested in someone’s else’s life through YouTube. That’s why YouTubers can experience very high engagement on Instagram, because people know the person behind the picture. So, I always tell my influencer friends – or anyone who wants to be an influencer – to start a YouTube.
In terms of kit, I have a ring light, a little digital camera and a tripod – and that’s it, most of the time. Sometimes I’ll even just use natural light. For example, when we moved recently, I wasn’t able to get my camera and light set up immediately, so I used daylight to film a haul. I had the blinds open in front of me to illuminate my face, and the other blinds shut behind me (you want your light source to be in front of you, rather than lighting you up from behind, which would mean your face is in shadow).
Obviously in the winter it can be more practical to use artificial lighting, because if you’re filming a video at three o’clock it’ll be pitch-black by four. Likewise, if I film at night, I use three lights: my ring light and two studio lights either side of me. But both natural and artificial light can look good. All my vlogs are filmed using daylight, because obviously I’m not going to carry those lights around with me everywhere if I’m filming in the car or moving around the house.
Sometimes I wonder if I should invest a little bit more in my kit and the rest of it, because I have a lot of people watching my videos, so I should be trying to perfect what I put out. But I feel like if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. People seem to enjoy my videos as they are – my content isn’t too high-res, so again, it could feel unrealistic if I were to up the production standards! The best way to build a relationship with your audience is by being super relatable.
After filming, I edit my footage using iMovie, which comes installed on a MacBook. I’ve downloaded loads of different software tools before, but I just stick to what I know because I find iMovie super easy. I taught myself how to use it when I was about 15 and now I feel like I could edit a video with my eyes shut! You can watch tutorials on YouTube, but it’s that simple to pick up that you could just learn like I did, by importing a video into iMovie and just playing around.
As for what to keep in and cut out, Tommy started a YouTube channel recently and asked me to teach him how to edit. Explaining it to him reminded me that the knack of editing is all about understanding what the audience wants to see – and what they don’t. You have to really focus on what your audience is looking for and get rid of whatever they’re going to be bored by. Just think, Well, would I want to see that? Would I want to see someone talk for 30 minutes about that topic … or even five? That’s why it’s great to have a passion for watching YouTube if you want to be a YouTuber, because you will automatically start to know what works and what doesn’t.
TikTok was definitely something out of my comfort zone. It took me a while to be convinced to join because when it first came out, I thought, No way. I’m not going on that – I don’t need another platform to worry about right now. I can barely keep up to date with the ones I’ve got! But it’s good to try new things, including new apps – after all, that could be where your audience goes next. (And I do feel that TikTok is the up-and-coming platform that could overtake YouTube and Instagram at some point in the future.) So, after a while, as I kept hearing about it, I told myself, Well, I don’t need to take it that seriously, and finally downloaded it.
I actually made myself understand the app a little bit before I started posting videos on it. I’d watch videos and soon I began to understand what people were posting and talking about. When I actually started to enjoy the app a bit, I began posting myself. I’d always recommend that when you join a new platform: it’s so much more natural to learn it as a user and a follower yourself, rather than jumping in and expecting people to follow you on a platform you don’t quite get!
I still don’t find it the easiest platform to post on. I actually find it quite hard – I don’t know how people do these crazy creative videos. I can’t do them! I can edit a YouTube video very well, but TikTok, I just can’t grasp it. But that’s OK: sometimes I’ll post really simple, silly videos on there. In the same way I feel Instagram is for my glossier, more polished content, and YouTube is where I’m super real and relatable, TikTok is a place where I can just have fun. You don’t have to post the exact same content across every platform. It’s much more enjoyable, for you and your followers, if you adapt to each one.
I have used Twitter in the past … but Twitter can be a really toxic platform. If you say one wrong thing on Twitter, it’s game over for you. People on there like to criticise anything you say, so I’ve actually deleted the app from my phone now. I used to like to see what people were saying about what I was up to: if we did a Filter by Molly-Mae campaign, for instance, I’d be on Twitter every day, checking the responses to see how it was being received. If someone takes time out of their day to tweet about something, they obviously care about it quite a lot. But while some feedback is helpful, it just started to get so nasty that I deleted the app. My account is still there, but I don’t plan to get back on it anytime soon. I just don’t think it’s a positive platform for me, sadly.
With so many platforms, it can feel hard to find a place for yourself online – how to do so is my most-asked question from people these days, in different forms: ‘How can I grow on Instagram?’ ‘How can I grow on YouTube?’ ‘How can I get a following?’ To grow these days, it can feel like you have to be doing something so different to everybody else. The influencing industry’s grown from nothing into this huge, competitive world.
That’s why, if you’re keen to get started, I think it’s important not to focus on just one platform: TikTok is ‘the one’ right now – and no doubt there will be the next big thing to explore eventually. But it’s really important to be active on all the key platforms. As I said, I didn’t actually want to transition to TikTok at first, but I knew that that was where things were heading. More specifically, I’d still say if you’re looking to grow a bit of a following on Instagram, start a YouTube channel too, because I do believe that my YouTube is what helped me to create a relationship with my Instagram audience; it complements it really well.
The other thing I always say is that, if you’re going to start an Instagram page or any other social feed – and this is a bit of a cliché, because all influencers say it, but it’s important – do it because you enjoy it. Not just because you want to make money from it, but because you actually enjoy posting your outfits or your travels or whatever it is that you want to share. Because that just takes the pressure off it all a bit, which also helps you stick with it. After all, I didn’t earn a penny from Instagram for about three years while I was building up my following. I just did it because I really did enjoy it, and I hoped that in the future something could lead from that.