Everyday she's hustling:
The labor employed to succeed in an Instafame-obsessed society
The findings showed a reaffirmed idea of the importance of authenticity, as well as the prevalence of parasocial relationships, but more significantly hustling was proven to a primary tactic utilized for beginning influencers while social and economic capital were helpful at speeding up the process.
Hustling was emphasized by the influencers as a substantial aspect in an influencer's success on Instagram.
When questioned about the influencers growth tactics starting out, all of them said a variation of hustling, such as trial and error, doing it all, and "anything and everything." Moreover, it was shown that through this endeavor to keep up with the evolving industry and changing algorithm their passion shifted into more of a job, thus blurring the lines of leisure and labor. Influencers repeatedly came back to the idea of labor that is put in behind the scenes of all their posts and content. Both mental and psychical labor, or the aspects of planning posts, carving out time to create content, keeping consistent and engaging with others, but also the emotional labor of constantly stressing about posting, the algorithm, and worrying about logistics of whether they should post something or not.
"I definitely planned out my outfits every week. I made sure to shoot every single weekend and I would batch outfits. I still do. I would batch like five outfits at a time and shoot them all and I really have skipped very few weekends since so I think just having that consistency."
- Anonymous Macro-influencer #2
Physical labor of hustling
Emotional labor of hustling
We create for like the algorithm or like you know...what do I need to post and what's gonna look good on the feed? What is, you know...what time do I have to post at, like are people going to engage with this? And then, like not just are they going to engage with this picture, but like if I post this picture and it like tanks, then that means my next picture is also going to struggle because it's like, that's part of the algorithm...is like how good did your last one do cause if the last one did good that means more people might want to see what your next post is, but if the last one sucked then less people are going to see your next one. It’s like this constant battle.
-Melissa Ziegler, macro-influencer
Social capital was learned to come in many forms for an influencer, such as pre-existing personal connections, professional connections, but also fostered connections.
Through the interviews multiple themes emerged around the idea of networking and reaching out. Influencers starting out were glad to get all the help they could even just having their friends, relatives, or significant other take photos of them to post. As in most industries networking is a significant part of growth, and it is no different in the influencer industry. The influencers asserted that creating a network of people, especially other influencers was useful because it formed what was acknowledged in past research as a "collaborative network" (Mavroudis, 2019). This collaborative network can help with sharing individual tips and tricks, but also can form an alliance between influencers if they openly share what they are charging and what brands spend what. Fostered connection are also important because actively reaching out is one of the only ways to grow in this industry. Sarah LaPierre talked about the importance of professional connections and how it's important because one never knows who knows who:
"Actually I did through working at the marketing agency that I was at, I made actually a really good contact who ended up going to work for a huge beauty brand in New York. So she was one of our clients and then she left and got this new job and that was like an amazing like in for me at a big brand. That has helped my audience a lot."
- Sarah LaPierre, macro-influencer
Economic capital gives an aspiring influencer a jumpstart into Instafame success through material goods and expensive equipment, but one still needs to brandish talent and skill to give quality content that attracts new and loyal followers to keep coming back for more.
Previous scholars hypothesized that influencers may be benefiting off their prior affordances and ability to replicate “the visual iconography of mainstream celebrity culture” (as cited in Giles, 2018, p. 169), and many of the influencers did echo this sentiment. Almost all of the influencers said they did believe it was easier to break into the influencer industry if one has prior affordances in which to be able to purchase goods such as trendy clothes, accessories, and photo equipment, but they also added that aspiring influencers still have to be able to put in the work, have the ambition, and talent or skill to be noticed. Money can get you to a certain point, but the influencers contended that there still needs to be that passion and self-determination to go further up the Instagram influencer success ladder. Melissa Ziegler added an anecdote about one of her personal friend's economic affordances:
I definitely, I will say like one of my good friends, she started Instagram, like she started a new Instagram two years ago and organically grew it to like 70,000 followers...like she was already at like 30-something by like a year in...and, you know, I will say that like...like a huge part of that, like obviously she put in hard work but so does everybody when they're trying to grow it, and I will say that like what really helped her was, you know, her parents had the money to help her get, you know, the nicest Canon camera out there...and then also she has a means to buy those really nice things, you know, like buy like designer stuff, like buy, you know-- Like one of her big goals was to work, partner with Revolve, so she just would buy and tag Revolve until they reached out to work with her and then now she's a Revolve partner.
- Melissa Ziegler, macro-influencer
Melissa also added that while obviously her friend has had to still be talented and produce good content for Revolve to reach out and partner with her, it’s definitely easier and quicker for her to gain Instafame than for someone who does not have the money or affordances to spend on clothes, or to buy an expensive camera.
To view the full findings report click here. To continue on to the conclusion, click the arrow to the right.