The importance of building a strong and engaged online community, prioritizing authenticity, treating followers as friends, and taking their feedback into account.
The significance of patience, consistency, and avoiding constantly changing strategies based on online tips and trends in order to achieve success as a content creator.
Deep dives
Natalie Barbu's journey as a social media influencer
Natalie Barbu started her social media journey in 2011 on YouTube, initially making videos for fun without realizing the career potential. Over time, she transitioned from beauty and fashion content to lifestyle and entrepreneurial topics, evolving as she grew older. She emphasizes the importance of being able to make her own choices and content on social media, without being restricted to a specific niche. Natalie shares her experience of building a strong and engaged online community, prioritizing authenticity, treating her followers as friends, and taking their feedback into account. She also discusses the shift from being a solo creator to starting her own social media agency, highlighting the importance of scaling and building a team.
The journey to turning social media into a career
Natalie explains that social media was never her initial goal for a career, but as she started making money and saw the potential for growth, she began to view it as an opportunity to open doors and achieve her dreams. She stresses the importance of patience and consistency, sharing her own story of waiting eight years before going full-time as a content creator. Natalie advises aspiring creators to stay consistent, build a strong community, focus on engagement and intentional content creation, and avoid constantly changing their strategies based on online tips and trends.
Navigating the evolving world of social media
Natalie reflects on the evolution of social media, from its early days of connecting with friends and family to becoming a platform for building personal brands and achieving fame. She highlights the current emphasis on short-form video content, particularly on platforms like TikTok, and expresses her concern about the homogenization of different content types, as many platforms try to emulate TikTok's success. Natalie emphasizes the importance of creating content that resonates with one's audience and building strong communities rather than just chasing follower counts.
Building a business while staying authentic
Natalie discusses her transition from being a solo creator to building her own social media agency, Rela Social. She shares her insights on maintaining authenticity and staying true to oneself while growing as a business owner. Natalie emphasizes the value of consistency, communication, and community building, along with being intentional in content creation. She also cautions against relying on quick-fix strategies and advises against working with influencers who have grown rapidly without focusing on relationship building and community engagement.
Natalie is an influencer turned entrepreneur. She began her social media career in 2011 onYouTube in the beauty guru phase. She has grown her following to over 360,000 followersthroughout her platforms, made it her full-time job, and pivoted multiple times in her journey. Sheis the host of The Real Reel Podcast, a show where she speaks to entrepreneurs, businessleaders, creators, and everyone in between talking about the real reel - not the highlight reel -the CEO and founder of Rella, a management tool made for influencers to run their business.
In this episode of Under the Influence:
Natalie’s pivot from influencer to entrepreneur
How to grow your social media to influencer-status
The future of social media
What qualifies someone as an ‘influencer’
Get to know Natalie: rapid-fire questions
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