I’m not sure there’s a minimum time period for the gaining of expertise on any particular topic. If anything, it would vary from subject to subject. Surely, becoming an expert on space travel, for example, would require more time than, say, gaining expertise in stick and peel wallpapering, or making the perfect slice of toast.
So I’m aware, really, that while the two years I spent working as a social influencer give me a certain level of expertise, I probably know less about it than Chiara Ferragni or Sarah Nicole Landry or Suzanne Jackson.
Then again, I’ve spent as much time outside of that whole world – studying and observing the goings on – as I did in it, and if you combine that objectivity with the fact that, as an influencer, I managed all of my own collaborations, from booking to billing, I’d say my knowledge of the whole thing is pretty thorough.
Let’s start at the start: according to coursera.org, which offers more than 6,900 online courses: “Social media influencers establish themselves as experts in a particular field and share their knowledge with a curated audience on one or more social channels. Influencers create and share content regularly to establish their expertise and work to build a relationship with their followers.”
For those with aspirations of becoming a social influencer, Coursera recommends the six-month “Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate” – this despite the fact that, in their own definition of a social influencer, the marketing aspect is notably omitted.
Salsify, however, has a slightly different take: “A social influencer is a person who's gained enough credibility and following on social media to be able to market a product, service, or brand.”
For my part, I’ve always seen the difference between someone who’s just popular on social media and someone who could arguably be called a social influencer, as being entirely to do with payment. If you take money to promote or market products, services or media on your social media accounts, you’re a social influencer.
The first paid collaboration I ever did – the moment the door opened for me to consider social influencing as a career – happened while I was deputy editor of Stellar magazine. I was approached by Lidl to do a set of Snapchat videos sharing how cost effective it was to shop there, compared to other supermarkets; in return, I would receive a €250 voucher (some of which I’d inevitably end up spending in the creation of the videos).
It wasn’t the kind of offer that had me handing in my notice and packing up my desk at Stellar, but it did give me a moment’s pause. It felt as though a door I’d never even noticed existed had opened up before me, and the seed was planted: what if I harness this newfound following and turn it into a viable career?
At the time, my Snapchat was being viewed by around 20,000 people a day, almost double the number of people who were buying the magazine I worked at, and I was growing increasingly disenchanted with the realities of working in traditional media, where budgets were narrowing by the day, leaving editorial teams scrambling to attract potential advertisers.
I was spending as much time coming up with ideas for “native” or paid content as I was researching and writing editorially independent pieces, and, at the end of the day, I wasn’t getting paid any extra for it.
As a social influencer, each and every brand deal I pitched and negotiated would mean money in my pocket, rather than someone else’s, money that would allow me the freedom to focus the rest of my time on creating content that felt meaningful to me. (Honestly, I imagined myself doing one paid Instagram post a week and spending the rest of my time writing my book.)
While I never went back to print media – at least not full-time – after my exit from Stellar in early 2016, the reality, as is often the case, didn’t quite match up with my expectations.
And because you probably have a fair idea of what the highs of influencer life might be, I thought we’d start with the aspects that gave me pause and, ultimately, led to my throwing in the influencing towel and making Substack my full-time gig.
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