The Secret to Influencer Longevity

Mary Orton has been posting about fashion for over a decade, first on her own blog, Memorandum, and later on Instagram and TikTok. She has some advice for influencers hoping to hold onto their audience beyond the next viral microtrend: don’t try so hard.

Or at least, make it look easy.

“The audience is smart, they know if you are trying to maintain a facade and be something you’re not,” she said. “If you’re waking up every day, thinking ‘What can I create for my audience?’ That is really hard to sustain versus just sharing your real self and the way you evolve over time.”

In the creator economy, the hunt for the next big thing is never-ending, and competition to be the “it” influencer of the moment has never been fiercer. Since the pandemic, the number of Americans working in content creation has multiplied nearly eightfold, from 200,000 in 2020 to 1.5 million last year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Many are chasing the same dream, of blowing up overnight on TikTok, then raking in brand sponsorships and affiliate income.

It does happen. Few, however, are able to translate early success into a lasting career. Algorithms change, and so do audience preferences. One month, they’re obsessed with the lives of wealthy young women living in lower Manhattan; the next, those same creators are the face of “boring” New York TikTokkers.

Even the national political mood can halt a promising influencer career in its tracks, as many Black creators discovered as the swell in attention around the racial injustice protests of 2020 gave way to a White House-led backlash.

“It’s more difficult to get a brand’s attention and maintain it, and even to get more followers and appear in the algorithm,” said Ayana Lage, a content creator and writer. “Black creators have a similar experience of huge-name brands approaching us with these gobs of money and now that is not the case.”

For the influencers who make it, the reward is a loyal audience that will stick with them (and buy products they recommend) no matter what. The trick is making it through those difficult early years. For that, longtime influencers say the key is to balance evolving one’s brand to meet the industry’s constantly changing demands, and retaining what people liked about you in the first place.

“People have seen the rise and fall of these women, and that’s very human,” said Erin Webb, founder of Dehanche, a Paris-based belt brand that saw direct-to-consumer sales shoot up 200 percent after getting shoutouts from veteran influencers Arielle Charnas and Leandra Medine Cohen in the same week.

Building a Business

Many of the longest-lasting creators in the industry built their businesses one post at a time. Much of that comes down to reliability: Followers should know generally what sort of content to expect from you, whether it’s fashion, beauty or lifestyle and when to expect it, posting on a regular cadence.

Today, many emerging content creators get started with a viral video. That can be a tricky act to follow.

“If you’re focused on virality, you’re not going to have a long-lasting career,” said Christina Jones, the executive VP of talent at UTA-owned influencer management firm DBA. “If you go high very fast, you can go down very fast.”

While virality brings in views — and yes, followers — it ultimately means “you’re just hitting a new audience each time,” Jones added. Exposure matters as a tool to convince people to stick around.

Most of all, though, they should recognise the voice. Even as your life changes, there should be consistent threads throughout. Natalie Lim Suarez, who first began blogging under the name Natalie Off Duty when she was 15, said that even as her follower count has grown — she currently has over 1 million on Instagram — she’s continued to incorporate personal touches into her content, such as nods to her Chinese and Mexican heritage by showing her Lunar New Year celebrations.

“If you show your evolution and what sets you apart, that shows the value you bring to your partnerships,” she said.

That’s especially important to keep in mind as a creator business grows. When influencers start working with more high-profile brands and building up a team, they can become more conscious of what they’re posting, at times losing the candid or casual tone that drew followers to them in the first place. Influencers should not only be mindful of retaining their voice, as well as crafting the right team, according to Jones, including “people that disagree with you sometimes.”

Executing the Perfect Pivot

An influencer’s business is more malleable, and they are increasingly seeking out ways to diversify their income beyond the standard sponsored content deals.

When inbound brand deals began dying down, Lage started a Substack and ramped up freelance writing. Meghan Donovan, who started her blog Wit & Whimsy 20 years ago, launched a travel consultancy called En Route to Rêverie after receiving endless requests from followers for travel recommendations in Paris, a city she visits regularly. It’s now a growing element of her business — seventy percent of clients already follow her — and allows her to connect with followers in a different, less public-facing way that helps her avoid burnout.

“I really like the idea that I am touching every aspect of their trip,” she said. “I’m helping them plan it and booking their hotel, but I also am helping them plan what is in their suitcase.”

Creators also routinely shift the type of content they’re creating, without losing the qualities that won them their audience initially.

Influencer Jennifer Lake, for instance, rose to prominence on Instagram during the 2010s for her brightly-coloured outfits shot against similarly-hued outdoor walls and murals — catnip for that moment in social media, where curated, bold looks were favoured.

Those are still part of her content, but as platforms have prioritised video and less stylised content, she’s incorporated more travel-centric Reels, as well as more casual at-home outfit shots.

At the same time, she’s also conscious of what platforms make sense for the type of content she produces. Despite its growth potential, she’s been less focused on TikTok because she wants to focus on Instagram and her blog, which she remains active on because she feels it’s important to have “something I own” that isn’t subject to the whims of a platform’s algorithm.

That mindset, however, should apply not just to the style of content produced, but what you’re talking about generally. Donovan said she is just as selective with what products she recommends as she is with what brand partnerships she takes on. She only will share a product with her followers when she’s had ample time to test it, and will mention them over and over to underscore the validity of her suggestion. (It’s also helpful in securing deals, too, she said — brands want to work with creators who are organic fans.)

“I feel like I’m only as good and relevant as my last recommendations,” she said. “Constantly shilling the hot under $50 item is a good way to get money upfront, and even potentially grow, but if you are sharing new things all the time, people remember what they’ve seen you talk about.”

In that sense, consistency helps to build trust, which Donovan and Lake underscored as the absolute most valuable commodity as an influencer.

“This is such a relationship business,” added Lake. “It’s not a one and done interaction, a single comment, a single share, a single DM interaction. It really is about building our journey together.”