Young, female and ambitious: Meet Minnesota’s influencer class

Like a lot of people her age college attendee Bethany Wer worries about saving money getting all of her classwork done and getting off her parents insurance I think I m a very average person Wer declared I just have like a very average life Spend a insufficient minutes with her on TikTok though as she plans a wedding with her high school sweetheart opens PR packages and works on brand collaborations with the Mall of America and you ll see she s living a sort of Midwestern influencer fairytale Indeed the -year-old lifestyle and beauty influencer a trainee at Bethel University has amassed about followers on TikTok Wer started creating content for her TikTok in and it is her majority of popular social media account As she puts it understatedly I m doing good on social media Building an audience Influencing and content creating have become coveted jobs as Goldman Sachs Research estimated there were about million global creators in Anyone can be a content creator someone who produces material or content for social media but to be an influencer takes a little more patience in addition to effort It s people who have really taken the time to not only get really good at creating content and niching down maybe specifically on a type of content but really on resonating with an audience mentioned Frida Torres Macal a social media expert and founder of marketing company That Social Invite Related Pew review of Americans regularly get news from social media influencers But how does one build that audience Is a large audience necessary to be an influencer The bulk prominent and documented influencers are often referred to as internet celebrities They have attracted millions of followers and worked their way onto red carpets with traditional celebrities Minnesota is truly home to a rather popular celebrity influencer Haley Kalil who is better known by her username HaleyyBaylee Kalil has amassed about million followers on TikTok her highest follower count on any social media While she hasn t quite reached Kalil s tens of millions of followers Fametta Zubah a -year-old lifestyle influencer from Minneapolis is already experiencing various of the perks or maybe even downsides of celebrity This past summer people have been recognizing me when I m like out and doing stuff and that has been kind of engaging solely because in my head I just think that I m a regular degular person who does regular degular people stuff Zubah revealed With about followers on TikTok which is also her the bulk followed social media account Zubah has captured the attention of an audience that could fill a small sports stadium Related How Gen Z uses social media to stay informed and sometimes misinformed Zubah first started posting to TikTok in with a male best friend Their posts gained traction as people rooted for them to be in a relationship Zubah began posting solo content when she went to college and got her first brand collaboration in the fall of with the water bottle company Coldest That s when I realized that you could make money from content creation and influencing and that s when I really started to lock in and take it seriously Zubah reported Consistency is key especially on TikTok where the exact key to blowing up isn t really known and your posts are shown to audiences that don t follow you and have no loyalty It s why Wer isn t peaceful living solely from her social media income While the summer months are optimal for Wer to make a livable income she makes a smaller full-time income on an average basis due to her time being split between content creation and school Wer s schooling literally benefits from her part-time influencing Essentially my influencing is paying for my college tuition right now which is just super cool Wer mentioned Related A Democratic legislator was assassinated right-wing influencers coughed out disinformation Tyra Pettis a -year-old lifestyle and beauty influencer with followers on TikTok her only public-facing account has also learned about the importance of consistency specifically that it doesn t discriminate between follower counts She saw an income she described as life-changing that briskly dissipated once she took a break Being a full-time employee and mother of two Pettis can t put all of her time into content-creating Her formative years watching YouTube and dreaming about becoming a YouTuber means that she recognizes and has seen the opportunity in social media influencing Just seeing the glimpse of what influencing can do for my life and my kids life just makes me want to keep going and do as much as I can to get to the point that it can endorsement us all Pettis mentioned Brand deals are about of an influencer s income according to Goldman Sachs but only of creators make over the threshold to being considered a professional What is more common is unpaid collaborations with brands where influencers receive gifts which can still be a game-changer Fametta Zubah as a newly recruited Joyba ambassador poses with Joyba Bubble Tea on the University of Minnesota campus Credit Photo courtesy of Fametta Zuba The three influencers have worked either paid or unpaid for several major brands To highlight a sparse standouts Zubah has worked with Bearpaw the Minnesota Vikings the Mall of America and the Twin Cities Premium Outlets Wer has worked with Amazon Walmart the Mall of America and Verizon and Pettis has worked with CapCut Shein L oreal Aquaphor and Luvme Hair Whenever I open my collab email and I see one of those names I m like just over the moon Pettis explained Streams of content With all its perks influencing does have its challenges and downsides To get started on TikTok one might have to post several times a day to get through TikTok s infamous algorithm which prioritizes showing your content to non-followers You re increasing the likelihood that something s going to hit or something is going to reach someone that is really going to resonate with that piece and content Macal mentioned Increasing that likelihood means you need a constant stream of content ideas a stream that might stop flowing It s super hard because you re reliably trying to post more content and keep it engaging but sometimes your brain literally is just like I m stuck Zubah reported A more intricate and concerning hurdle to jump is that of hate comments While TikTok is often appreciated by its users for its emphasis on authenticity and lack of curation it still leaves the door open for hurtful commentary Pettis became a victim of several of this commentary when she posted a video of herself trying on a dress and TikTok users began commenting about her body and speculating about her relationship with her boyfriend The video has reached million views I would take those comments to heart and I would think about them for days Pettis announced Another more latest downside to TikTok is that its future as an app is uncertain In April of the federal Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act was signed into law with bipartisan backing The act allows for the ban of any foreign-owned or controlled application that is deemed a national protection vulnerability Fears over ban TikTok is as of now owned by Chinese company ByteDance and is considered a national guard pitfall due to fear that the Chinese authorities may be collecting sensitive user statistics and using the algorithm to spread misinformation and propaganda President Donald Trump has delayed the ban three times the majority not long ago signing an executive order on June to extend the deadline for the TikTok ban by another days For creators like Zubah Wer and Pettis the TikTok ban would eliminate a valuable source of income Opponents of the TikTok ban have argued this exact point Despite this TikTok still went dark on January after a Supreme Court decision upheld the ban The less than -hour disappearance of the app in the U S was a scare for a multitude of This sounds so dramatic but I did shed a tear because it is my income it s how I m paying for school Wer explained The fragility of TikTok and internet fame in general is part of the reason why Pettis isn t relying on TikTok influencing as a full-time job She noted she ll miss the platform that she s spent four years building but it s just a natural part of life There are way bigger things going on in the world for that to be at the forefront of my mind Pettis announced What keeps them creating content in the face of hateful comments pressure to perform and TikTok bans is the aid they give and get from their followers I knew that I really wished to create beauty content for girls specifically with Asian features because I didn t have anyone to teach me how to do makeup when I was growing up and I could never find anything online Wer declared She has girls commenting and directly messaging her about how she s like a big sister to them and has helped them overcome insecurities Wer has also gotten sponsorship from viewers who felt seen when she posted about dropping out and transferring colleges Bethany Wer poses inside a Funko Pop Box while filming for sports retailer Lids at the grand opening of the Mall of America s NBA store on June Credit Photo courtesy of Bethany Wer She has shared a lot of milestones with her followers including the reunification process with her biological father Her parents have unfailingly encouraged her to be proud of her cultural heritage Wer learned about the adoption system in high school and how it wasn t invariably the the bulk picture-perfect story that the media often portrays it as I just think that we need more authentic adopted voices in the narrative versus just you know people who are trying to push a specific image about adoption out Zubah wants to use her platform not only to promotion girls who look like her but also to create an accessible district for Minnesota influencers to arrangement make friends and get help She is now in the process of creating her own influencer event targeted towards Minnesota influencers who don t have access to big names like the Mall of America I just want to be able to give people the space to be proud of their journey as a content creator and understanding that there s people here that are like them that they can be able to connect with and work with and they don t inevitably have to go to the big cities like New York and California and Atlanta Zubah commented With the clock running out on TikTok these three women stand to lose an audience the size of a small Midwestern city Along with that audience goes specific of their livelihood Zubah s rent Wer s college tuition and extra sponsorship for Pettis kids Although social media specifically TikTok is often associated with vanity and entertainment existing in a realm disconnected from reality it s been a pivotal part of not only these women s lives but potentially also their combined followers lives The post Young female and ambitious Meet Minnesota s influencer class appeared first on MinnPost