August 27, 2020
If you have ever wanted to get a behind the scenes look at what it’s like to be an Instagram influencer or you’ve wanted to partner with brands you love but have no idea where to start, you’ll love today’s episode!
Josie Bullard is an Indiana-living, content-creating, business-owning gal with a zest for helping others turn their creative passions into a reality. She dropped out of college to pursue her dream career and believes you can pursue your dream life too. You can find her now as a digital creator and Influencer by day as well as your host over at the Behind the Feed podcast. She focuses on colorful, captivating content and strives to inspire and connect with her followers.
Josie dives into how to navigate brand collaborations and long-lasting relationships with brands, influencer myths, behind the scenes of content creation and her creative process, and her advice on how to grow online.
Josie is a digital creator and Instagram influencer and has been in the industry full time for about two and a half years. Her passion began in high school when she started a mini photography business and shot senior portraits. She loved photography and became intrigued by Instagram and everything that it entailed. She began to post creative photos, put herself out there, and even had a Youtube channel.
When she went off to college to become a graphic designer, she quickly realized it wasn’t what she expected. She felt like something was missing and it didn’t really hit the mark for her. Meanwhile, she had a whole side hustle going on on Instagram where she already had an audience of 10k.
Josie saw so much progress and potential on Instagram and ended up dropping out of college after only going for a semester. It was nervewracking because she had never been paid off a collaboration before but she had a feeling that this was something she was meant to do. She took a huge leap of faith and now has an audience of over 100k followers and has worked with over 200 brands.
There is so much that goes into it! Working with brands can be such a scary and intimidating thought when you are first starting out. The biggest mistake that people often make is that they think they have to hit a certain follower amount or have a certain amount of content before they can start reaching out to brands. This can hold so many people back!
No matter where you are in your journey, start pitching to brands now! The worst that can happen is that they say no. Don’t let that hold you back! You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. If you aren’t putting yourself out there, you’re never going to get a yes. First things first, pitch yourself.
Spend a lot of time researching brands that match your brand! A mistake so many people can make when they first start out is to accept any and every collaboration. You really need to think about who you are, what your niche is, how a brand can fit into your own brand, and how you can fit into their brand. Brands are looking for people who are really going to fit their message. If it’s not a good fit, don’t reach out!
When you do reach out to brands, tell them what YOU can offer them! Often, people think about the free product or how they are going to get paid rather than spending time telling the brand why they are worth it. This can be a huge turn off to brands. You are pitching to THEM! Really spend some time thinking about what you have to offer! Figure out what that is and what is special about your platform as well as your audience. Use this as a pitching point and go from there. Continue to follow up with companies. If it is a no now, send a follow up message in the future.
Establishing long term collaborations is the key to success when you want to make it a full-time career. Ultimately you don’t want to be pitching to tons of new brands all the time. Ideally, you want a select few that you are working with. Not only is this awesome for you and the brand, but it is great for your audience as well. They can become familiar with the products as well as continue to trust and value your opinion.
When you are working with brands, don’t be afraid to start deeper conversations with them. They are people, too! Clearly they see something in you that they love. Often, when Josie does a collaboration and finishes up with the deliverables, she will follow up and tell them that she loved the collaboration and outlines what a potential long term collaboration would look like.
Don’t be afraid of your own power. You can easily set things up and give ideas that brands may not even be thinking about.
Brands love to have their go-to people that they can trust.
Josie always tries to make sure her collaborations flow with her content. She does a lot of thinking because it is more difficult to get a product integrated into your content seamlessly.
For example, if she is working with a shampoo company, rather than just holding the bottle up she might try to find an all pink backdrop, get some bubbles involved, and do a fun pose to make it a little different. Josie is always thinking about how she can elevate whatever it is that she is doing.
When you are posting paid sponsors posts, you are spending and gaining social capital. For every sponsored post you have, you are spending that social capital. You might be losing your followers’ trust if you post too many sponsored posts. Find the sponsored posts that can flow seamlessly and that will further gain your follower’s trust.
Strive for a very unique and fun photo that will be eye-catching and pair it with a really authentic caption.
Josie uses her Pinterest as well as Instagram to save and be inspired by other sponsored content. Pinterest can be such a great place to pin inspiration.
If Josie is working on a project she likes to create a mood board for the collaboration. Then, as she goes back through to note certain poses or concepts she works to create her own spin on things. The goal is to be inspired by the images, but not recreate them. When shooting the photos, she will often have this mood board on hand!
The biggest one is that influencers are just a pretty face that posts a photo! People think that it can’t be that hard! This could not be further from the truth! When you are an influencer or a creative of any kind using the Instagram platform, oftentimes you end up being the model, photographer, brand manager, negotiator, and editor. It’s a full-time job and this can be hard for some people to grasp because they don’t see the behind the scenes.
It’s important to know that you can not measure your success off of a number. If you are forever chasing a number, the number is never going to be enough.
You can’t measure your success by the number of followers you have. It is all about the connection you have with those followers. How many of those followers are loyal people? If you can change one person’s life, that is a huge deal! Focus on that.
Focus on sharing your talent and interesting information and getting those loyal fans to follow you rather than chasing the number in your head.
If you just focus on the number you are going to be neglecting all of the key things that actually go into finding success in the long run.
It’s not that much different at 100k than it is at 50k or 10k. There are so many more important aspects of your business that will contribute to your success overall. If your goal is to just be at the top, you should probably reevaluate your goals.
Show up! Show up for your followers. If you aren’t showing up and providing quality for the people that are already there, how do you expect more people to join you and stick around in the long run?
There is no secret formula. It doesn’t exist. Things are going to look different for everyone.
Continue to show up and be authentic. People can see through those that aren’t being genuine or authentic. People love relating to you! Don’t feel pressure to make your life seem perfect. People like to have a deep inside look into everything that is going on. This is what attracts large groups of people. Make them feel like you are doing it for them. Hone in on your talent and passion and connect with your followers that are already there.
It’s okay to fail. It’s okay to get turned down by brands or people and it is okay to not be everybody’s cup of tea. Never let that fear keep you from putting yourself out there and trying again. Do what you love.
Feel the fear and do it anyway. Don’t let the rejection keep you from trying again.
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www.instagram.com/josie.bullard
www.instagram.com/mrslindseyroman
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