Based in Toronto, this content creator is paving the way for a new wave of Instagram influencers.
Gone are the days where being a successful content creator meant that you had to hide all of your tricks or viewed other people in the industry as direct competition. Gone are the days where your Instagram successes lie solely on vanity metrics, such as likes & follows.
The new wave of Instagram influencers is all about helping and inspiring others through creativity. It is why we’re so excited to see many of our Swayers making this their mission.
Today, we’re highlighting the work of one of our talented Swayers, @eunoiainspired. Tina’s true passion is for fashion, however, being in quarantine during the 2020 coronavirus epidemic has shifted her focus towards more creative shots.
Eunoia means a beautiful mind and her platform celebrates positive thoughts and self-love. Her mission is to help and inspire others through her unique personal style and experiences.
Let’s get to know the mastermind behind the content!
I actually first became a content creator because I knew someone who was a content creator and it honestly was really intriguing to me how she could work with amazing brands and create marketing pieces for them!
It sounded like the dream and that’s what got me into this space. However, I think that was the wrong way to approach it, and I learned a lot during the first couple of years.
Now my motivation is really to inspire others through my creativity! Photography and editing are truly a work of art and I love creating beautiful imagery and seeing my creative visions come to life!
I like to start with a vision or theme and try to think of different ways it can be created. For example, with my floral series, I thought about different ways flowers can be used in the shot. I used perspective and used it as a flower skirt, then I put a bunch of flowers and petals in an umbrella and made it rain, I used petals as makeup, etc.
Pinterest also helps with generating ideas when I get stuck! But most of the time it’s really just random posing and sticking props on my face or body!
Way too many hours haha, it really depends on the shot I’m trying to take, some shots I can get within 5 min and some takes hours. I usually spend around 2 hours or so every week planning out my concepts and ideas and creating mood boards.
I recently just started taking weekends off from posting to focus more on shoots and they usually take anywhere around 3 to 3.5 hours on average for 5 shots. Editing also takes around 3 hours for 5 shots.
It definitely changes week to week though, some weeks the shoots are simple, but editing can take a lot longer! I usually do caption the day I share the content. On average, I probably spend around 2 to 3 hours on Instagram every day doing engagement and planning content!
He’s definitely my personal photographer and I have no idea what I’d do without him! He’s not that involved in the process, other than taking shots with me.
He definitely does not enjoy the process (which is why I have to bribe him with lots of food and kisses haha) but he understands that this is my passion and so he’s very supportive of my dreams through being my human tripod!
I wouldn’t say there were any terrible brand collabs, but some brands do take forever to get payment to you. I once had to chase a brand for 6 months to get paid!
Other than that, I’d say never accept any collabs where you have to pay, I definitely did that when I was starting out. For those that are just starting out, if you have to cover shipping or if you have to pay for part of the product.
The biggest piece of advice I would give is to focus on your community and your content. I made a lot of mistakes when I first started because I focused on vanity metrics, and although I’m doing a lot better now, there are still a lot of repercussions I’m trying to recover from (i.e. bots and lower engagement rates).
Plus always remember that you’re doing this for you! If you’re coming into this space with the goal of money and brand collabs then you WILL get burned out really fast.
I’m not saying you can’t dream of doing this full time and making enough money to support yourself but you definitely need to understand that it’s a lot of work and most of the time you put in is not to get brands but to build your community and audience, so you have to fall in love with your content and work first!
I found creative content to resonate a lot with my audience lately! But also a lot of my content where I offer resources or tips do really well. Definitely see an increase in saves for those posts!
It’s definitely difficult sometimes, but I’ve learned to partner with brands who have a similar vision with mine, so I usually look for more fun and colorful personalities in brands and products I partner with!
When I do shoot brand content, I like to do a carousel usually so I can use a more creative shot for my cover where the product is smaller, and then do more closeups of it in the later slides. That way I can be creative and not seem like a walking billboard!
Engagement, Engagement, Engagement! I’m not just mindlessly scrolling on Instagram! I’m actively commenting and liking other people’s posts, as well as trying to discover new accounts!
It’s definitely a slow process, so don’t rush it. I built up my audience the wrong way when I started by doing engagement pods and giveaways, and that was the biggest thing I regret!
Although I did have a lot more followers, they were fake and unauthentic, so I had to do a cleaning spree when I decided to really get serious about content creation in which I probably blocked 3k bot accounts. Trust in the process!
Never join engagement pods, or spend money on giant loop giveaways. I’ve done both and they are so not worth it! We all make mistakes when we first start and I think I was just so focused on vanity metrics like follower numbers that I didn’t care about the quality of my audience.
It’s a hard and long road to recover from creating inauthentic audiences!
Also, Lightroom presets are your best friend! Before I discovered presets were a thing, editing was a nightmare, and I didn’t understand how people could create such cohesive feeds! Having a visually pleasing feed definitely helped me gain more love on my account.
The biggest challenge for me was doubting my worth. I was giving brands everything and extra shots because I didn’t think I deserved to get paid with such a small following!
However, that is so not true, and with more transparency coming in the influencer space within the past couple of months, especially with @influencerpaygap, it’s really helped me see my worth! I know people who are doing this full-time with only 8k followers.
I do pitch to brands, and I would say the biggest tip I have is to not get discouraged. For every successful pitch, there will be anywhere between 10 to 50 that don’t respond or say no.
Don’t include your media kit unless the brand asks and always in your pitch tell the brand why you want to work with them and what you bring to the table, whether it’s your creativity or love for the product!
I definitely want to continue with influencer marketing in 5 years! I’m not sure where my content will be by then since this is my last year of school!
It’s easy to balance content creation when you only have 30 hrs of work a week so I’m not sure how it’s going to work when I start a full-time job. However, I do love my creative side and definitely want to keep seeing it grow!
My next biggest goal is to hit 10K on Instagram by the end of this year and mature my blog! My dream is definitely to make this full time and be able to travel and share my stories with my followers, but we’ll have to see where life takes me!
We hope reading Tina’s story has sparked your creativity! Will you join this new wave of influencers?
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