Job: Social media influencer
Salary Range: Varies, with the potential for six-figure business deals with brands
Worker: Chriselle Lim
Age: 32
Education: Earned a degree in merchandising and marketing at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles
Company: Cinc. Studios; The Chriselle Factor
Social media is the new advertising frontier. As companies of all kinds hunt for attention on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram, they rely heavily on the guidance of influential millennials. These natives of the digital world are paving the way in monetizing social posts, an industry that barely existed a decade ago. Called “influencers,” they have large audiences that follow their social media accounts. Brands pay them to advertise products — overtly or subtly — to their many fans.
Among these successful young entrepreneurs is fashion blogger and video producer Chriselle Lim, whose 1 million Instagram followers and more than 750,000 YouTube subscribers land her solidly in influencer territory.
In college, the Texas native studied accounting to please her parents, but one class in fashion convinced her to pursue a more stylish career. After studying at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles, Lim worked for a small LA magazine while cultivating a following through YouTube videos and blog posts.
Now, when she’s not in front of the camera documenting her life and promoting makeup, swimsuits and handbags, Lim and her team of 10 producers, videographers and operations managers create advertising campaigns for fashion and beauty companies like Valentino, Smashbox and Giorgio Armani.
In between runway shows during New York Fashion Week, Lim, 32, explained how she turned her love of fashion into a digital empire and revealed what skills are needed to gain followers and run a business.
How do social media influencers make a living from their photos, videos and blog posts?
There are many different ways to monetize your business as an influencer, whether it be partnerships with brands to create photo or video content or even just monetizing affiliate links. [Affiliate links from one website to another track the source of traffic. Some companies pay commissions to bloggers and publishing companies when affiliate links generate sales.]
There’s no one way. For me it was capitalizing on working with the brands I truly loved that needed content.
[See: 10 Ways to Perfect Your Personal Brand.]
Lots of people create and consume social media, but relatively few turn that into a career. How did you get started?
Right when everyone was going on Facebook and YouTube, I realized there was no one my age speaking about high fashion. Back then, you only went on YouTube to watch 13-year-old girls or cat videos.
I saw a need. My friends would always come and ask me, “How should I wear this? Can you teach me to do that?” I thought, “What if I created videos to help my friends?” I think because I came from more of a professional background in styling, they really respected my tips and advice to them.
Once I uploaded a few videos, they all just started to grow in number quite quickly. That’s how my YouTube channel took off. That was back in 2010.
Soon after that, I launched The Chriselle Factor, which is my website, my blog. I didn’t have a team. I had to teach myself how to edit, cut things up. Both platforms really rose together. My audience wanted more and more fashion content.
When I started in 2010, it was really just odd for someone to pay an influencer to create for them. It was a brand-new industry. There were some opportunities that came here and there, but I was very active with putting myself out there, meeting brands, having them understand what I was good at. They would soon enough come back and say, “Would you be interested in creating a video for us?” It happened organically.
That’s when I was like, “OK, there’s a business side to this. There’s some money to be made here.”
When did you realize you could succeed in this line of work?
It took at least a good three years to really be able to fund this, the business side.
Throughout the process of building up my channel, I learned there was such a need for great-quality content, not just for audiences, but for brands. I would get so many requests from brands: “Can I hire someone from your team to create a branded campaign video for xyz?”
I was like, “Why don’t you hire my company to create content for you?” It just made so much sense. Everyone needed the digital content. Now, we have the production business side, which is being hired by clients to create campaigns for them.
After three years, I was able to get my first office space. That’s when I was like, “I made it!”
As a kid, what job appealed to you?
I do love my career now, but I didn’t think I was going to be here as a child.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I always loved fashion but I never thought it was tangible to make it into a career. No one around me had a job in fashion, so it didn’t even register that I could have a career in fashion. It was a hobby for me.
But I always, always knew I wanted to be a boss. I always knew I wanted to have my own business of some sort, whether in fashion or whatnot. I just knew that was my calling, to have a team of people.
So, what’s it like to be the boss now?
I knew if I was going to do this, I had to make it into a business. It wasn’t about gaining more followers, it was about building a team. That was always my M.O., my motivation.
I realized that I needed to look for people who were really good in their field. I’m not the best video editor, but I was able to find someone who is incredible at that. It was always, for me, scouting people who are really on top of their game.
Fast-forward eight years, now I have a team of 10 people who are constantly working with me on creating the best content. We also launched Cinc. Studios, my new production company.
After having a baby, I need more time in my life. I’m going to spend more money finding people who are great at what they do so I can buy back my time.
[See: 8 Ways Millennials Can Build Leadership Skills.]
What’s your typical workday like?
If I’m not traveling, I really treat my job as a regular 9-to-5 job. Usually I’ll get to the office by 9 or 10 a.m. after dropping off my daughter at school and doing the whole mom thing. I’ll spend the whole day at the office with my team, whether it be building out content for production clients, or for the blog or YouTube for our audience, or taking meetings and phone calls.
I’ll leave the office by 5 and do the whole mom thing again: cooking dinner, putting her to bed.
Even if it seems I’m constantly traveling, that I have this crazy lifestyle, which I do at times, I don’t differentiate myself from anyone else who has to go to a 9-to-5 job. I go by a very ordinary schedule.
What’s your workday like if you’re traveling?
There are different types of travel that I do. One is Fashion Month traveling, which is what’s happening right now. That month is really strategic on content building. I am filming every single day with my team when I’m out during [New York] Fashion Week, and they’ll craft a video by the end of the day to share with followers. [Twice a year, designers show their collections in New York, London, Milan and Paris during four-week periods known as “Fashion Month.” Each city has its own “Fashion Week.”]
I just got back from Shanghai, China, with Dior. That was a really quick, three-day trip really focused on their skin-care products, and creating content around the products.
We’re always building content, no matter where we go.
What skills do you need to be an influencer?
As an influencer, you just have to have a good eye. You have to know what looks good, because 80 percent of the time is about visual storytelling. Nowadays, although you could be a great writer, it has to be supported visually as well, especially on Instagram, the blog and YouTube. Having a good eye is key.
But also being somewhat eloquent and smart and if you have a blog, being somewhat of a decent writer. Being able to communicate in words what you’re doing and how you’re feeling. Those are the main skills to be an influencer.
What skills do you need to start a company?
The business side, that’s a little different. You could have a blog but that doesn’t mean you have a business.
You have to be more of a visionary. You can make quick money as an influencer, but if you want a business, you have to have more of a long-term vision. Grit, really, to stay with your business plan and be willing to make sacrifices. You need a bit more of a strategy.
What are the perks of the job?
You get to experience things that I would have never imagined myself experiencing in my wildest dreams, being in the fashion industry. There’s a lot of perks. There’s lots of traveling. You get to test out and see new products and launches before they hit the market. Lots of invitations to fashion shows sitting front row.
[See: 10 Jobs That Offer Millennials Good Work-Life Balance.]
What are the challenges of the job?
On the flip side, you always have to be “on.” When you put yourself out there as an influencer, it’s not necessarily about just what you wear, but it’s about your family, what you eat, where you’re going. It’s everything.
With my followers, they’re not following me to only see what I’m wearing, they’re following me to see what I’m doing in my life.
I’ve gotten used to it, but there are times where it just gets kind of exhausting and you want to turn off. With the family, you have to find a good medium for what’s too much and what’s OK so you can still protect your personal life as well. That was kind of a struggle in the beginning, because I didn’t know my boundaries.
I feel like I have a good grasp on it now. I have a very supportive husband. I have a baby now. Because of her, I don’t travel even half as much as I used to.
That’s the downfall, you just really have to put yourself out there all the time. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything else. I think if you find the right people around you to support you, to understand what you’re doing, then you just go, and you just know when you can turn off and when you shouldn’t.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
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