I’ve decided to become an #influencer. How hard can it be? | Sofie Hagen

For the previous two years, I’ve been attempting actually arduous to grow to be an #influencer. I simply wished to #affect folks to dwell their finest lives, to search out their inside power and – OK, I wished free stuff. Should you can’t beat it, be a part of it. Capitalism, that’s.

Since I’ve 100,000 followers on Instagram who take heed to what I say, to whom I usually advocate my favorite services and products, why not double-check if the manufacturers need to pay me to take action? I’d relatively they pay me than somebody who isn’t me. What I’m saying is: I wished to do the very straightforward job of #influencing and get a number of cash for it.

I assume, since you’re studying the Guardian, you’re frowning disapprovingly whereas sucking on an avocado as a result of #influencing is vapid and superficial. However are you actually telling me that, if somebody provided you £1,000 to take a photograph of the aforementioned avocado and submit it to Instagram utilizing the hashtag #avocadosrule and tagging @avocado within the submit, you wouldn’t be tempted?

I made an oath: I’d by no means lie. I’d by no means advocate something that I didn’t use or need to use myself. And I wouldn’t cease being myself on social media: I’d preserve posting about social points. If manufacturers didn’t like that, I wouldn’t work with them. It was time to take my followers and switch them into money cash.

I began with a number of #gifted skincare merchandise and a gold card to my favorite all-you-can-eat Sunday roast buffet restaurant. Somebody provided me £800 to submit a photograph of myself in a neon inexperienced thong, however I’m unsure if that was a model deal or if that was simply … a person.

Then an #influencing company signed me – as an precise #influencer. I used to be so excited. I laughed when my new brokers advised me that they’d, in fact, give me some coaching – till I realised they weren’t joking. I used to be taken by means of the seven apps I wanted with the intention to be a content material creator – it seems that the common picture must undergo at the very least three photo-editing apps earlier than it’s price posting – and I used to be taught about hashtags and algorithms.

Posting within the morning or night is finest: that’s when persons are on their solution to work or enjoyable at dwelling. Don’t submit at weekends; folks aren’t on their telephones. You may disguise your hashtags within the feedback part and so they nonetheless work. Differentiate between pictures of your face, your physique, meals, magnificence and nature. Stick to 1 color scheme throughout your grid. After getting posted, spend half an hour commenting on folks’s feedback: Instagram rewards engagement by displaying your submit to extra folks.

And so forth.

Then my dwelling was dissected. My dinner plates have been all shiny – they need to be matt. My desk tops have been shiny, too – I would want to get particular photoshoot backgrounds that appear like fancy marble counters on which to pose my meals. Now, I continuously discover how shiny all the things is: my cutlery, my image frames, my brow. It’s all very not #Instagrammable.

I’ve gained a lot respect for #influencers. It’s a must to rise up early, as a result of morning mild is one of the best. It’s a must to have a tidy – and matt – home. Your meals all the time will get chilly, as a result of it takes for ever to curate a photograph of it. It’s a must to perceive complicated and ever-changing social media algorithms. It’s a must to plan forward and assume strategically. It’s a full-time job, not a straightforward facet hustle. I discover myself desperately clinging to my job as a comic and attempting to merge the 2: to be humorous in my #sponcon (sponsored content material) in order that nobody notices the mess within the background, or the truth that it’s darkish exterior as a result of I slept till 4pm.

After all, magnificence requirements suck, materialism is the worst and “good” social media posts make folks really feel super-insecure about themselves. However it’s arduous for me in charge the ladies who’ve discovered a solution to get wealthy by taking benefit of a beauty- and perfection-obsessed, poisonous and capitalist system. As a result of it’s approach tougher than it seems to be. Sadly.