TRANSCRIPT:
Me: Just to let you know I’m going to record this for research purposes, just so I can transcribe it afterwards, is that ok?
Samantha: Yeah, that’s fine.
Me: Ok, going straight into it. First off, we’re going to talk about your audience. So how did you build your audience, did you use any specific techniques?
Samthana: I think being consistent was the main thing for my audience. Posting regularly, I’d post like four/ five times a week, I think consistency was one of the reasons I built my audience.
Me: What kind of followers do you think you have in relation to age, gender… are they students?
Samantha: I’d say from quite young, so 15 to about 25/ 30 because I have quite a lot of older people and young people if that makes sense. Most of them are actually female followers so I would say…. Even like Aunties, but I have a few Aunties, but yeah I’d say, people who are at uni, so students…. Girls, there's a mixture. I do have a few males as well but it’s mainly females.
Me: Do you have a target audience in mind when you’re posting to your Instagram? Do you post content specifically for this female audience?
Samantha: To be honest, yes I do, and I feel like I do more for the curvier girls because I’m very curvy I feel like I post knowing that they’re going to be for people who are bigger or people who are plus sized if that makes sense?
Me: So girls who you feel can relate to your content type of thing.
Samatha: Yeah exactly.
Me: How do you interact with this audience? Do you reply to comments often?
Samantha: Yeah, I do actually. I’ve gotten a bit bad at it at the moment because they pile up but I try and respond as soon as possible so normally I get people messaging me in my DMs and I’ll reply to my DMs quite often… if they’re important messages and stuff. My comments as well, I do reply to… sometimes when I can I do, it’s just a bit hard because it builds up sometimes. But normally, I make time for it and I do usually respond to people.
Me: Do you have to dedicate some time to it, sit down in the evening and think, right, I’m going to go through my things?
Samantha: Yeah, you do because when it builds up, it’s just so annoying but you have to make time for it, I feel like because it’s kind of rude if people comment and you’re just like not replying to them… every single post… so I balance it out. If I can reply to a certain person who’s asking a certain question then I DM them or I reply in the comments so I do both really.
Me: Moving onto creating content. How do you choose to create your content, is it just a natural photo when you’re out with your girls and you just stop quickly and take it or is it where you plan your content for the week and do like a shoot type of thing?
Samantha: Before, I would just go out…. When I didn’t have a lot of followers, I would just go out and do a picture, but now that I get a lot of promotions and stuff, I like to plan my shoots in advance. I have a few photographers, my brother takes my pictures and I have a best friend who helps me out, so I usually plan ahead, like a week before and have all the outfits, decide what I’m wearing, plan the location. It’s always hard to find a location because where I live it’s very like, there’s not much around me. I go to London sometimes, I’ll pick all my clothes and shoot in one day, if I can but that never happens, I like to plan my shoots in advance so I know what I’m doing and what days I’m doing it and stuff like that and what locations I want.
Me: Do you get to get to decide what you say about a product when you work with a brand or do they say you need to hit these specific points in the post?
Samantha: With brands, they usually give you a little quote or like a caption, it’s usually a hashtag and their Instagram. They usually set it out for you already so you just have to put it in your caption. The brand will set it up for you.
Me: So do you get to say your personal opinion as well? Can you say that this is really flattering or perhaps this, I don’t know, would you ever say this doesn’t fit well?
Samantha: I think for pictures it’s very difficult unless I really hate the product. If I really hate it and it’s just like I wouldn’t really recommend it then I would make a video about it, normally with pictures, people will genuinely be asking you well is it nice, is it not nice but with some companies the quality hasn’t been that good so I’m honest with my followers if that makes sense? I get people asking if the quality is nice, is it good for bigger girls, then I’ll reply in the comments and stuff like that. For an actual post, you don’t really get the chance to say much, you just want to post it and that’s it.
(5:25)
Me: What type of content do you enjoy posting the most? You’re quite clothing heavy, would you say that’s what you enjoy the most or would you ever consider doing cosmetics, or food and drink if brands approached you about it?
Samantha: I would say clothing to be honest because that’s what I’m into. Fashion mainly. I’ve had companies that want me to promote jewellery but I’m not really… I’m not into jewellery like that. Do you know what I mean, like a necklace or a watch, but I’ve declined it because I’m not into all of that. I think my thing is mainly fashion and clothes.
Me: Yeah, you stay true to that theme?
Samantha: Yeah, because I don’t want to mix it up and do too much because it’ll be all over the place. I like the theme that it is at the moment.
Me: And do you think your followers enjoy seeing these fashion posts the most?
Samantha: Yes because when I’ve done a post before with a company, what was it…. Let me check my Instagram, sorry one second… I’ve done a post before quite a while back and it was a jeweller [inaudible] necklace and I didn’t get as many likes on that one but when I post my clothes and stuff I get way more likes if that makes sense. I did a phone case AD before for a company, it was like a personalised phone case but I had to delete it because it didn’t get a lot of people who were interested in the phone case, they want more outfits and stuff so I’ll definitely say they’re more into that side.
Me: Does it take you long to create a post, such as going to do the shoot, taking the picture, editing, is that a long process or just a couple minutes?
Samantha: To be honest, no, no it’s not actually, now that I know what I’m doing. So it’s like a routine, I’ll usually shoot, get home, choose the pictures I actually like, edit them, and then save them and just post the ones I had as favourites, that’s pretty much it. I feel like it’s not hard work if that makes sense, it’s easy because I know what I’m doing now.
Me: So you would say the sponsored posts are worth it financially?
Samantha: Not always no, because there’s the whole getting ready and it’s an effort if that makes sense. I think some days it’s good, the other ones are not, so it’s like you have to get ready, find a good location, find a good background and they demand a lot from you as well. Some of these companies want a lot from you and they’re not paying enough money for what they want. Some of them are and some of them are not.
Me: Do you work with a company and have an organised routine with them then, so they send you stuff and you have to post say twice a month or is it sort of one-offs with brands.
Samantha: It depends on the brand and if they like your content, they’ll always reach back to you if that makes sense, I have a company that I work with all the time now, it’s a routine, I get clothes every two weeks/ every week. So today I’ll post a shoot today and then next week they’ll email me asking me to pick something else and it’s a routine with different companies so yeah, if they like your content, they’ll message you again and you pick a date and shoot. They usually give you dates of when they want you to post, so they’ll give you a schedule of what day they want you to post but also ask what day works for you.
Me: Yeah, I spoke to someone else and they said the brand was quite strict on the day and time they wanted her to post. But her engagement wasn’t that good on that day and time… does that ever happen with you or do you have more flexibility and can say it’s going to do a lot better if I post it now
Samantha: Yeah, with me and companies normally they’ll tell you dates they want you to post and if you can’t post it then they can just change the day so with me it’s a thing where I get the day to post every Thursday and if I can’t post that day because I haven’t got a shoot or I haven’t got a photo, I’ll just tell them I can’t do it today and they’ll just say to post whenever, but they have set dates like every Thursday and a set time. It’s not strict, but I feel like at the same time with me, they’re a bit more understanding that I do have university as well. If I can’t do a post then I’ll do it whenever I can… it’s okay actually, not too bad, I can’t really complain, to be honest.
(10:05)
Me: Would you say this is a second job for you, this isn’t your primary source of income and it comes more naturally to you. Or is it more that you have to do this 24/7?
Samantha: I think it’s a second job really, but I feel like it’s a hobby at the same time. I enjoy doing what I do if that makes sense? Because I’m at uni as well, this is something I do more that I love doing. I wouldn’t say it’s a job, it’s more of a hobby but I feel like the more followers you get then it becomes like a job because you have to check up on emails, what your shoots are, it becomes more job pressure from it because before I didn’t really care. I was like I’ve got these much followers, I don’t really care, but now I’m a bit like ok, you’ve got to put out good content, it’s more of a job now I think than it was before.
Me: Do you ever approach brands that you want to work with or is it more of a case of them sending you emails and you just going through and seeing who you want to work with?
Samantha: I’ve approached a few brands actually when I was first starting out, the thing with the brands is it’s good to approach them sometimes when you’re just starting up so you can get more people to see that you’re working with brands. I worked with fashionnova quite a while ago but this was a while ago, I approached them. It was a free shoot because they were sending the clothes and I approached them so they weren’t going to pay me for it, which I didn’t mind because I love fashionnova as well so I was quite excited, it was more for like they were doing me a favour if that makes sense?...
Me: Yeah, because you’re getting the clothes as well, do you get to keep them?
Samantha: ...Yeah I approached a few brands, when I was starting up but if I like something, I don’t mind promoting it and I don’t mind approaching brands, it’s fine by me.
Me: Do you have to state that it’s an AD now, or….
Samantha: Yeah, you do actually but I forget all the time and you have to say that things are gifted, but I think it’s just because I don’t really take it seriously but I should but you have to say when something is gifted or if it’s an AD or a promo, whatever it is so that your followers know that you didn’t purchase it with your own money. Which is good though because people tend to lie about certain companies just because they’re getting paid for it so I think that it’s important that we do say if it’s an AD or it’s gifted or whatever.
Me: So you think that it is beneficial you saying if it’s an AD or gifted now even though you are genuine to what you promote anyway?
Samantha: I don’t really think that it makes a difference to be honest with me, but I think by now that people know most of my clothes I get them for free, because it’s just like…. You can tell when a post is sponsored or gifted, you can tell, I feel like with me I can tell if a person has been gifted something but I think for the followers, I think it does help them in a way because if they want to purchase something because they know that this person is an influencer, they’ve been gifted something and they’re promoting it so maybe it helps people that want to buy something I guess.
Me: You’re not the first to say that you’ll go through an influencers page and they will see every single post has been gifted or is a paid promo, what are the tell-tell signs of that because I feel like it’s obvious to you because you’re in the business?
Samantha: What was the question sorry?
Me: An influencer can post lots of gifted content and not state it’s a promotion but that’s not as obvious to an audience because we’re not in the business, so how do you sort of know?
Samantha: I think with the hashtags, certain companies have hashtags with what their… if you’re a blogger, they’ll have certain hashtags for everyone because I feel like if you’re not a blogger then you wouldn’t really be putting hashtags, you wouldn’t be doing so much in your captions if you know what I mean? I feel like you just know, the hashtags, the mentions in the caption as well, yeah I think a lot can tell. I think like I know, so it’s easier for me yeah. The caption says it all really and then they tag all the brands that they want, if they keep tagging it then you just know yeah.
Me: Thank you so much for doing this, that’s all the questions I sort of needed to ask you.
Samantha: Sorry for being long to get back to you.
(15:03)
Me: It’s ok, I know you have your placement this year and everything. As you said, this isn’t your job, you’ve got Uni and everything as well. I appreciate it.
Samantha: Yeah… so is that everything?
Me: Yeah, thank you so much. You’ve been really helpful.
Samantha: That’s fine, you’re welcome.