Influencers
Becoming an Influencer
Online influencers have become prominent in the world of social media because of their ability to promote products through a visual platform. A rise in followers, means the rise of marketing to a desired audience. From our screens an influencer's life seems glamorous but that is not always the case. Here, the FRANK team spoke with three Chicago influencers who shared their experience of online popularity.
Photographers
Writers
Designer + Director
Dani McGowan
It does not take meeting Dani McGowan, 21-year-old Chicagoan currently living in West Town, to recognize she is an online and in-person presence who has made herself known as an influencer in the city. The bright blogger, ballerina, and branding connoisseur also known as @mermaidwaves on Instagram walks into any room representing herself in a colorful outfit with bright pink hair and an inviting smile.
McGowan’s account @mermaidwaves has racked up a growing number of followers since its creation in 2011. She is currently at 24.7k followers and this number is consistently growing. After years of experience in social media and blogging, McGowan often posts paid ads, has made guides with tips to using Instagram, branding worksheets, and runs the Instagram account for Chicago skincare and wellness shop, Scratch Goods.
McGowen remembers when she first got serious about making an Instagram, talking to her mom about how cool she thought her favorite fashion bloggers were and wanting to do it too. As McGowan enjoyed her favorite fashion enthusiasts posting their #dailyoutfits to Instagram, she was motivated to start her own profile and shape it into greatness. She would post photos of the cool food she was eating and the fun things she was doing with her friends — even posting her own daily outfit photos. Finding time between school and work, McGowan would (and continues to) have her mom take pictures of her to post online.
Influencers got the hang of social media before brands and companies did. According to McGowan, online brands were still figuring out their voice and needed help with digital media strategizing. Often times they took after popular profiles like @mermaidwaves — reposting popular feeds of content before hiring on their own team of content creators. This is how McGowan gained so much traction on her account in its first few years. It was a powerhouse of content which other brands were not directly focused on generating themselves — bringing branded audiences to @mermaidwaves’ feed.
“Hitting [the] 10k mark mostly came from getting reposted, [mentioned,] and shared by other accounts,” says McGowen.
Brands now have their own team for content creation and McGowen has seen Instagram evolve as a platform, noticing brands focus less on influencers for inspiration and more as an effective channel to market their products to branded consumers.
People want to be recommended products by the people they admire, which is why social marketing is often so successful. If you’re thumbing through someone’s Instagram story every day, you start to feel like you know the person more than as just an Internet personality.
“If my best friend is like ‘oh my god try this,’ I will” says McGowen.
Brands will send influencers clothes to pose in or products to try out and review for Instagram posts, knowing their audience will likely buy the product being sold. Like bloggers who try out new, trending products, Instagram Influencers often share their own experience with the product they are selling - demonstrating themselves using it, showing their progress using it over time, and sharing testimonies.
Influencers share characteristics that make their opinions accepted and their lives interesting — skincare/beauty gurus, tutorialists, fashionistas, artists, athletes, etc. and these characteristics often parallel the unique interests of a company's’ target audience. When a quality influencer gives a positive recommendation about a product, their relevant, engaged, and loyal audience will be motivated to take their advice and follow the advice or trend. Companies use influencers to market their campaigns and product launches because when done well, the Return on Investment is high.
Having such a consistently colorful feed and a focus on artistic ventures, McGowen knows that the brand of Mermaid Waves attracts an audience of female, urban creatives. Often posting photos of her chill and chic outfits, she’s perfect for pushing holiday campaigns for clothing brands and, with her experience at Scratch Goods, her skincare and wellness tips have credibility.
McGowen knows that when influencers are able to stick to their own brand and market products to their audience organically — advertisements are received better. Not only do audiences notice that sponsored post sticks out from the influencer’s normal feed, but they feel invaded by the unsought ad. Customers value the genuine, honest feedback about a product that an influencer may have and feel unnerved by sponsored posts that feel forced and fake.
“I have a very distinct look and feel. I think brands that approach me are already aware of what’s [we’re] going to be in alignment with” says McGowen.
The biggest tip McGowen left was her message to maintain social media as a fun excursion from reality, explaining that overthinking social media ruins the fun of it. It is not uncommon to hear stories about users getting absorbed in the digital platform by obsessing over numbers and reactions or meticulously wanting to keep the page cohesive and consistent. Not obsessing over the color-theme of her page, when she wants to post cute things spontaneously that she may not have planned for she doesn’t let it stress her out.
“I don’t let myself freak out when things don’t look different or there’s one photo out of place. Whatever, in a couple of weeks it’ll be at the bottom and no one will care,” McGowen says.
Hallie K.
Wilson
What began as a personal blog as a way to meet people has turned into a full time business for Hallie Wilson, who is now a full-time life, style, travel and fitness blogger in Chicago.
After spending five years working for a marketing research company, Wilson found herself feeling unfulfilled with her full time job. She spent her days working in Microsoft Excel without any outlet to channel her creative side, and was not using her journalism degree to its full potential. Wilson created her own website called “Corals + Cognats,” and began taking photos of herself, putting them on her website and publishing blog posts about fashion as a hobby and way to socialize with new people.
Wilson never imagined she would be able to leave her full time job to pursue this creative hobby. “I certainly didn’t expect it to become a business,” Wilson says.
Brands then started to realize the potential Wilson had and the audience they could reach through her blog and social media channels.
Shortly after, social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram began to gain popularity. These platforms were more natural for Wilson to post to quickly and drive traffic to her site. She entered the social media world through Twitter as a way to share her love for fashion. After doing that for awhile, she got better at at understanding her followers and what kind of content they wanted to see.
Eventually, she was approached by Ann Taylor — her first client. She recalls that it was the “coolest thing ever” to receive free clothes from a brand for the first time. Wilson never imagined she would be able to leave her full time job to pursue this creative hobby. “I certainly didn’t expect it to become a business,” Wilson says.
Brands then started to realize the potential Wilson had and the audience they could reach through her blog and social media channels.
Shortly after, social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram began to gain popularity. These platforms were more natural for Wilson to post to quickly and drive traffic to her site. She entered the social media world through Twitter as a way to share her love for fashion. After doing that for awhile, she got better at at understanding her followers and what kind of content they wanted to see. Eventually, she was approached by Ann Taylor — her first client. She recalls that it was the “coolest thing ever” to receive free clothes from a brand for the first time.
“The industry started moving and Instagram happened and all of a sudden the digital space became this separate way to reach consumers and new way to advertise,” Wilson says.
More brands started reaching out to her, offering her clothes, free food, tickets to events and VIP access. This didn't happen overnight, of course.
For five years, Wilson juggled her day job in New York and blogging until paid campaigns and partnerships for her blog started to rise. She was attending events after work and going to meetings and previews during lunch, which made her feel like she had two full time jobs.
“Events went from ‘Here are some clothes if you post a selfie and tag us’ to more, ‘We will pay you money to come to this event if you express to your followers your experience in three timeline posts and seven stories with specific words and hashtags,’” says Wilson.
Wilson finally realized she couldn't continue doing both, and decided to quit her full time job after five years of blogging. She then began to focus her content less on fashion and more on lifestyle. She began writing stories about how and why she left the marketing consulting agency and her journey into the fitness industry. She decided to rebrand herself, and changed the name of her blog to “Among Other Things” to better fit the wide range of topics she wrote about. This made her influence become more broader and encompassing, she says.
“In the past I had pretty much [focused my blog on] fashion and lifestyle because that’s what I knew,” Wilson says. “But then when I moved to New York and I was taking all these risks and started growing as a person, I started to write more from a narrative lifestyle standpoint.”
After rebranding, Hallie had to think differently about her blog. It was not just an expression anymore, it was a major life change. This move was a huge risk, and every step had to be strategic. After all, this was now her primary source of income.
The way Wilson collaborates with brands depends on the industry. She says fashion and beauty brands just want to push product and sell things, and restaurants typically want her to come in and eat for free as long as she posts on Instagram about it, while events such as City Limits Music Festival, which she was recently flown out to attend, just want influencers there to socialize and serve as an addition to a marketing strategy brands already have in place.
Although this kind of work seems glamorous from the outside, Wilson says it can be challenging to keep her own voice in the sponsored posts.
“The most frustrating thing about being an influencer is when a brand hires you to generate awareness or educate your audience about their product and they try to control so much of your voice that they basically kill it,” Wilson says.
Now, Wilson has over 50,000 Instagram followers and consistently blogs about life, style, travel and fitness while helping promote brands she trusts and loves. “Consumers really trust the opinion of someone they know,” Wilson says.
