The Business of Blogging: 5 Lessons I Learned as a Nano-Influencer

10K!!! I have been trying to reach and surpass this mark for 3 years now and the time has finally come! For those who may not know, reaching 10,000 followers on IG is a significant mark in the blogger stratosphere because of the increased opportunity it provides. You officially move into a new blogger tier (nano -> micro), you can charge even more of that mean (nice?!) green, and you have access to the coveted swipe up feature on Instagram stories which allows you to maximize use of affiliate links and more efficiently share blog posts + info with your audience. I am so excited and so grateful to have reached this mark because of what it signifies for my beloved SAC. Sharing with you all 5 lessons I learned along the way:

It takes money to make money. When I first started out, I did not have the best quality imagery. My family (especially my Mom!) and I did the best we could with the camera phone I had at the time. Yes, I was asking everyone to take my pictures and yes, that was before portrait mode even existed. Ha! If you scroll long enough on my feed, you can see some of those images. I understand not everyone with a social media presence endeavors to work with brands and monetize their platform, but that was always the goal for me. I knew brands wanted to work with bloggers who produce crisp, quality imagery, so it became my business to create just that…and consistently.

I saved up my coins as much as possible during med school so I could shoot with Tina Smith. Tina is just BOMB! She brings every single vision I have to life! Thank you, Tina! If you are in the Atlanta area, definitely reach out to her! I invested in and upgraded my iPhone so when Mom and I do have to shoot, the image quality is still great. And my Mom has really become a dope photographer, y’all. She gets those angles and Everything! Thank you, M! I also invested in Tina’s preset so the editing on my iPhone photos remains consistent with what Tina edits for me and so my feed is as cohesive as possible with all the color I wear!

And then there’s the clothing. Because how you gon’ have a fashion blog with no fashions?? LOL! When first starting out, I would restyle the same pieces over and over again. I was the Queen on flatlays; making the clothes look different in each image I produced. However, reworking and reimagining styled looks only goes so far and your audience will want to shop new, exact items in stock. That requires funds. I’ve had to be really stringent with my budget—especially when I was a student—so I could pour into what I believed in—SAC. After tithes, bills, and savings, any extra funds went to photography, editing, videography, studio rental, blog updates, website hosting, and fashions. Being a blogger does indeed require an ongoing investment, but I STARTED with what I had and invested when I could. But do it long and consistently enough and you Will see a return. This brings me to my next point:

Brands will take advantage of you…if you let them. All that I listed above as a blogger’s expense is what brands historically took on (and then some) when scheduling branded shoots. Their budgets for traditional marketing absolutely rivaled that of Diddy money. So now that we are settling into this new wave of influencer marketing, I am quite confused when large, established brands with large pockets offer bloggers a pittance for all the work they know goes into content creation and ad development. And this pittance is disproportionately offered to who? You guessed it. Black Bloggers. In (white people’s) reawakening to and increased awareness of the Black Lives Matter Movement, more brands have stepped forward to make efforts in closing wage gaps and me and my Sistas are holding them accountable.

Have I posted in exchange for product when just starting out so I could initiate a future paid collaboration? Sure. BUT the way I did that began to look different even before I reached 10K. I may accept items, style, and post, but the brand is not the feature of my copy. I tag the brand, but they are NOT the feature of my copy. Features require negotiations, contract, and payment. And a brand asking you to post free product over and over again “to build a relationship”–oh yes, they love that phrase–is not ok. That is something I definitely had to learn. Unless I am in a really dope and beneficial ambassador program—very rare—I accept items to try them out and transition the conversation into negotiations for a paid collaboration. And trust me when I tell you I say “no” more than I say “yes” to work with brands. Any sponsored post I do is with a brand I love, have tried, and already integrate into my life. Any ambassador program I am apart of and will be a part of going forward has amazing clothing I would purchase for myself anyway and offsets my production costs.

I’ve also learned how important it is to learn legal language surrounding rights to and ownership of content. I either charge a significantly higher amount for those terms or have them removed from the contract. I have never received pushback on that. No one needs to own or have years’ or even months’ worth of rights to your content without paying you more. The influencer marketing industry is still relatively new and ever evolving, so you can create your own rules, which I love! Just make sure those rules include boundaries and protections for you and your brand.

People want to Learn and be Inspired. My favorite part of blogging is how my platform allows me to share my story as a non-trad med student turned Doctor. And you know what? Those are my most engaged posts. I originally did not want to speak too often about the medicine on my feed because at the time, I was searching for an outlet, not a reminder of what I was going through in school. However, the more I shared about my experiences, the more my audience grew and the more people engaged. Other students near and far messaged and emailed me letting me know how grateful they were that I spoke about things that are so taboo in the medical field. That was especially the case when I released #AlmostDidn’tMD. These students and doctors said I made them feel more seen. And in doing so, they made me feel seen and heard too.

SAC is not all about the fashion. That is a huge part of it, but I realized people want a space where they can learn from and feel motivated by you. They want more than just a pretty pretty picture. They want value. These notions were all the more bolstered when I tapped into my love for history and shared my Black History Month series (can’t wait for this coming February’s!) and my #SeeMVwithMe series. People want to be and feel edified. I’m just so glad I stepped outside of my comfort zone and shared more of me outside of the fashion inspo. And every time a student messages me saying someone else sent them my #AlmostDidn’tMD video and they decided not to quit…well SAC’s Purpose, Power, and Impact grows significantly deeper.

You don’t need a 100K audience to gross real funds. You need work ethic, drive, and consistency. None other than THE Mattie James taught me this. Who else has been tuning in to her Wednesday IG lives since the onset of the pandemic? GEMS. Now, many influencer marketing agencies and experts will have you thinking you can only charge $200 – $500 per IG post if you have anywhere under 100K followers on IG. But how am I gonna build an empire like that?! Mattie encourages bloggers to just go for it and to package themselves and their services in a way that provides optimal value to a brand and optimal bank for the blogger. Here. For. It. Once I started listening to her lives, I realized just how much I had low-balled myself. I swiftly tried my hand at pitching brands with my significantly higher rates and do you know some of them said yes?! Do I still accept negotiations at all budget ranges? Yes, especially if I want to establish a relationship with and keep working with the brand. But do I start my pitch way higher? Oh yes! Don’t have people working you for pennies until you get to thousands and millions of followers. You can, por qué why? As I stated above: The influencer marketing industry is still relatively new and ever evolving, so you can create your own rules…and your own rates. Also, don’t sleep on affiliate links. Those commissions Add. Up. Mattie told us to link our little lives away during the holiday season. I did. And y’all showed out. Thank you!!

It truly isn’t all about the follower count. What about your engagement? What about the quality of your imagery? What about your ability to write well and showcase your voice? What about your content delivery? Do YOU like your content? This year, I really did my due diligence in pushing myself to get more honest and more creative with my content. I also did my due diligence in finding the correct contacts for and pitching brands. I did not wait for them to find me in a sea of influencers. Even in a pandemic, I was able to gross more than I did last year and cross some dream brands off my list. That is something I am really proud of. And I’ve already hit the ground running this year!

Blogging is indeed a career choice. If you treat blogging like a hobby, a hobby it will be. If you treat it like a career—and in my case, a second career—a source of income it will be. I know I have spent a lot of time in this post making references to money. I really want to drive home how lucrative this industry can be and how I took myself seriously as a nano-influencer. Accordingly, brands did too. I want other nano-influencers to know anything is possible. You can monetize now! You can work with your dream brands Now! It takes work to create consistent imagery, to draft content captions, to develop blog posts, to create affiliate links on LIKETOKNOW.it, to scout locations for photo shoots, to coordinate with a photographer, to manage a website, to review contracts, to send invoices, to follow up on unpaid invoices, to pivot during IG algorithm changes. It’s work far beyond posting a pretty picture and watching those likes accumulate. Influencer marketing is absolutely a career and a substantially valid one at that.

I have seen far too many bloggers apologize to their audiences for posting ads and affiliate links on their IG pages. I have even seen some speak negatively about always trying to make a sale. As for me and my house: I cannot afford to put this much effort into Instagram if it’s not for a greater career opportunity. I love my audience. I love engaging with my audience. I love offering advice to students in my audience. I still have a job to do. As a fashion blogger, it is my job to sell; no different than a sales associate in a boutique who offers styling for a commission. I would not show up to clinic and apologize for treating my patients. Why should we show up on Instagram and apologize for working with brands and affiliate marketing platforms? I hope more bloggers go into the new year treating this industry as the career it is and engaging with it Boldly. No apologies necessary.

I am so very grateful for y’all. All 10K + of you. Thank you for following my journey and for purchasing a blouse or two along the way! Funnily enough, I used to say back in high school that I wanted a job where I could mix photography and fashion…but I also wanted to be a Doctor. Wow God. Just Wow. He provided so I could do it all and live my dream out loud! I wanted to have and produce my very own online editorial. I’m DOING that. So grateful to all who gave this non-traditional, color-wearing, city-loving, history buff of a Doctor a follow! To all the nano-influencers, get your paper! And for those who are thinking about starting, START! Happiest New Year to you all! I hope it’s the year your dreams are made of.

xx,

Photos by Tina Smith