Why I’m Starting an Instagram Mentorship
When I began my journey as a full-time content creator in January 2021, I knew that I would face a lot of skepticism about whether I could make a viable income from this new career path in the very new industry of influencer marketing. In fact, coming from a typical conservative Asian-Canadian family, I held back from telling my parents about my decision until I started making a decent living. Despite the odds and the naysayers, I had a strange sense of intuition and faith in myself that things would work out— that I was on the right path.
My plan was to give myself a year to experience the full-time content creator life— for better or for worse. If it ended up being for worse, I would trudge back to the world of corporate jobs and stable paycheques. However, I knew I would regret not trying to be my own boss and pursuing the creative career I always dreamed of. Happily, 8.5 months have flown by and I now feel quite confident that this was indeed the right choice for me!
Why I’m Starting This Program
If you’re wondering why I’m suddenly starting a mentorship now, several factors recently came into play that motivated me to create this program.
The Experience
Firstly, I finally felt like I had gained adequate experience to guide others on their own paths. As of early September 2021, I’ve now had this Instagram account for four years and have many successful brand partnerships under my belt. While this industry forces you to constantly innovate, experiment, and reevaluate your content strategy, I feel like I can say I have a good grasp of what factors will help you to succeed and which will bring you failure.
Engagement
Other than the experience, my overall engagement, strong community, and quality of paid partnerships made me eventually realize that I have something valuable that brands (and other creators) are willing to pay for.
When I started comparing my page’s engagement to the usual engagement rate statistics, I realized that my engagement rate was MUCH higher than average. At the following size of almost 22,000, my engagement rate was between 9-13% (at least before the algorithm made things difficult once again). According to research done by Fohr (an influencer and ambassador marketing company), accounts with following sizes of 10,000 - 100,000 receive an average engagement rate of only TWO percent!
As a result of this engagement (especially regarding comments), I often get direct messages from other bloggers asking how I manage to get so much engagement and if I use engagement groups to get that number of comments. (The answer is: NO, I do not use any groups. My engagement is ORGANICALLY grown from people who actually want to engage with my content.)
Community
Building on the engagement rates, I started realizing that I also have an AMAZING community that really trusts the advice and opinions that I put integrate into my content.
Since I realized that this probably wasn’t normal, I started saving the comments and DMs from my sweetest supporters (I am blessed with quite a few) to share in my “Community” Instagram highlight.
As well, the QUALITY of the comments I receive on my posts are quite overwhelming. I always feel so blessed that people take a few moments of their day to read my post captions and write such sweet words.
Quality Brand Partnerships
Since I have such an amazing community, brands have been increasingly interested in securing my services in order to promote their products. As I’ve been learning how to properly negotiate better payment for myself, I’ve been astonished at how brands have readily accepted my greatly increased prices without blinking an eye (which tells me that I can probably raise them even more)!
Furthermore, these are amazing brands that I’m super excited to work with as they align with my values— sustainability, ethical manufacture, women-owned, Canadian-made, etc.
After recently being offered a brand collaboration for $6000 USD, I’ve been frequently asked about how I managed to secure such large brand partnerships (especially when I was accepting collaborations for only $250 CAD at the start of 2021).
In order to answer those questions, I will be writing another blog post in the near future (or just sign up for my mentorship when it’s open again)!
Small Business Life: Hemlock And Oak
Just over a year ago, my best friend Tia asked me to help manage the Instagram account for her sustainable planner business Hemlock and Oak. As a result of her trust in my abilities, I was able to help ORGANICALLY increase their following from 400+ followers to now around 4,500 followers (and we receive steady growth every day)!
Even more important than follower numbers alone, I was able to help the company foster online community amongst their #HemlockAndOakers customers. As well, I taught the Hemlock and Oak team how to practice and execute an excellent level of customer service over social media (my many years of customer service really came into use). As a result, she now receives a tremendous amount of support from amazing people who believe in her brand as much as I do!
As a result of this experience, I feel quite confident that I have experience in helping small businesses to grow their following and community (in addition to creator accounts).
The Demand
After I started sharing more openly about my journey as a full-time influencer, I started getting inquiries from other creators regarding mentoring or coaching them in order to improve their Instagram presence. After I put out some feelers on my stories and feed about any possible interest for my services, I received no less than thirty responses from interested parties. As a result, I took a few more weeks to set up a basic mentorship structure, figure what I would charge, and other practicalities.
What It’ll Look Like
After consulting some friends who’ve had experienced mentoring or being mentored, I decided to set up my program in the following manner:
1. INSTAGRAM AUDIT: After potential mentees fill out the questionnaire, I will set up a meeting that will take place via Zoom. A few days before our meeting, I will look over their answers and Instagram account. As I review those items, I will compile notes on my observations in preparation for the meeting. (Approximate duration: 1 hour)
2. ONE-ON-COACHING: The main portion of the mentorship will commence when we have a hour-long Zoom session to discuss the mentee’s concerns of their Instagram account. Specifically, we will go over the questionnaire and discuss any further areas of improvement. (Duration: 1 hour)
3. FOLLOW-UP: After our meeting, I will compile the notes I have taken before and during the video call into a follow-up document (along with any additional tips and advice that I might have for them). This list of action items will be sent to them so that they can use it as a baseline for improving their Instagram presence. (Approximate duration: 1 hour)
Finally, payment will be preferably through PayPal and charged in USD (the Canadian equivalent is acceptable if Canadian clients are paying through e-transfer). The first 50% of the payment will be paid after the video call and the remaining 50% will be due after I send the final document to the client.
Registration Temporarily Closed until 2022
As of September 18, 2021, I have reached my initial capacity of ten registrants and have temporarily closed the registration for this program. After much thought and debate, I decided that it would be unwise to take on more than ten mentees for the following reasons:
As this is a new endeavour for me, I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew. As quality matters much more than quantity to me, I want to ensure that I do an adequate job for my mentees who are trusting me enough to pay for my services.
In relation to the first reason, I know that November and December will be my busiest months for campaigns; therefore, I knew I had to set some healthy boundaries for myself to prevent myself from overworking. To me, my overall health and wellness matter much more than hustling hard to making more money!
As this will be my first batch of mentees, I want to take the time to learn as much as possible from the experience. In order to improve on my mentorship abilities and the overall program, I plan to send them feedback surveys that will point out the strengths and weaknesses of my mentoring. As well, I will be setting up a way to check on their progress and ensure that my coaching had a positive impact on their accounts.
After I have gathered such constructive feedback and have worked out any kinks in the program, I hope to streamline the process and launch an even better mentorship for future clients in the new year of 2022!
A Note of Appreciation to My Community
Without the constant support and kind words from my online community, I honestly would not have had the courage to launch such an endeavour! Imposter syndrome is something that runs rampant in our society and I am certainly not immune to its detrimental effects. Whenever I receive thoughtful comments or messages from fellow creators online, it makes my work on the platform worthwhile despite any frustrations regarding engagement or the algorithm.
I sincerely hope that I will be able to help my fellow nano- or micro-influencers navigate the often murky, confusing, and stressful world of Instagram and the influencer marketing industry. Once again, I am humbled and grateful for the amazing people who choose to support me and put their trust in me to mentor them!
Cheers,
Debbie (a.k.a. The Stylish Wordsmith)