This week, our class had the pleasure to hear from long-time blogger, Dee. She had great insight into the amount of work in creating and maintaining a blog as well as the importance of authenticity in influencing.
One point that stood out to me was the correlation between authenticity and sponsorships. Today, the amount of sponsorships and the type of sponsorships truly separates influencers for me. If I see someone promoting a brand that has questionable practices or a bad history, then I may rethink if I want to follow them and if their values correlate with mine. In a time where cancel culture will take you down in a day, people need to be more conscious now than ever about who and what they are promoting.
On the other hand, money in sponsorships has immensely grown as it has become one of the most effective ways to sell products or services. When someone is just starting to make money off of blogging or influencing, this money can be hard to pass up, especially in this economy. For those not in that position, it’s quite easy to judge others for agreeing to do these sponsorships when you don’t know the financial position they could be in. For me, a 20 year old broke student, if I was given one of these opportunities, I can understand how hard the decision could be as people will sometimes do anything for money.
Another point that I found interesting was when Dee said you should really take your time to create your brand and your content when you post. When she was saying this, I thought about all the times I have been told “just start posting”, “it doesn’t matter what you post, do anything and record!”. In a world where virality is more randomized than ever, starting to create your own content is both intimidating and exciting, making it an overwhelming experience to start which has been one roadblock for me, and many others.
In relation to the readings about tech writing, user persona and target audiences, I felt they all had very useful information but were created more for businesses than for smaller creators. For example, when talking about how to create a user persona to sell your products, I was sitting there agreeing with what this article was saying, but not finding how I can use this information in relation to personal content creation right now.
This is one very common thought I have been having throughout my time at university where I am learning so much but have nowhere to currently apply my knowledge in this moment. Obviously, this is what we are here for, learning the building blocks to become successful after we graduate. But it is never too early to start, and when all we see online are 19 year old girls receiving tens of thousands of dollars for their online content, it’s hard to sit back and keep everything in my back pocket until the knowledge can be applied.
