Meet Grace
Being able to balance living life with just looking like you live life is an art and a talent.
In a day and age when so many people are “flexing for the ‘gram,” it is refreshing to find someone who is letting their audience in on authentic experiences.
Meet Grace Huynh, a SCAD grad and fashion and beauty influencer who uses social media to create her own freedom while thousands of people cheered her on!
When did you start your influencer journey? Why?
This is all started when I was in high school.
I moved around a lot to different states/schools so I didn’t have many close friends. My parents were also strict so I couldn’t really go out much or enjoyed the typical “high school lifestyle” that everyone experienced.
So, I turned to fashion and beauty as my gateway escape from my not so fun and sheltered life that I was living.
WHY DO YOU THINK SOCIAL MEDIA IS IMPORTANT TO INCORPORATE INTO A MARKET STRATEGY?
Social media is basically a universal platform that connects the entire world together.
You can reach the masses with social media and because of that – this will bring traffic and brand awareness to your business.
Think of it like as a domino affect! Once an influencer starts posting about a brand on their social media profile – then their thousands of followers will 99% of the time will do the same!
More traffic means more sales and leads!
WHAT SOCIAL PLATFORM HOLDS YOUR BIGGEST AUDIENCE? WHY?
Instagram is definitely my favorite social media platform by far and holds my biggest audience.
A picture speaks a thousand words and more. Images/visuals are typically more prone to catching someone’s attention by first glance.
It’s also the best way to express who you are as a creative individual in one single photo. Instagram’s story feature is probably the best feature I use to get more visibility on my profile because I get more views with my IG stories.
And also I feel like in today’s generation – we’re quite obsessed of what other people do in their daily lives – especially with influences/celebrities.
WHAT ATTRACTS YOUR AUDIENCE TO YOUR PLATFORM?
My posts have always been centered around fashion/beauty as well as my lifestyle.
Not saying that my life is like one of a celebrity’s! But when I do actually go on vacations and events like music festivals, I want to be able to share that with my audience as well.
I don’t see my audience as “fans” or “just followers” but more as just regular people like myself. I’ve actually created my following back in 2011 when Tumblr just came out. I was blogging quite a lot about things I was going through and the emotions that I felt from those experiences.
People who followed me at the time found my posts relatable and would like/reblog and from their my following grew and grew.
I’ve actually made a lot of internet friends from Tumblr over the years since 2011 until now which makes sense since I didn’t have many friends in high school. And these weren’t creeps/strangers on the internet as one would may thing but they were (and still are) real genuine and normal people who I had things in common with.
Moving forward – I moved on from Tumblr and found Instagram and from there my audience/internet friends followed.
WHAT ARE TWO OF THE MOST POSITIVE MOMENTS YOU’VE EXPERIENCED WITH YOUR BRAND THIS YEAR?
I’ve worked with a quite a few great brands in the past when I was really on my IG game.
I’ve worked with Tobi, the clothing line, where they’d send me clothes and in return I would post a photo of me styling the clothes together. You know, the usual brand partnership.
I’ve also worked with Daniel Wellington, Boxy Charm, PonysMakeup, Triangl Swimwear, ColourPop, and a bit more! Unfortunately, I’ve never gone far enough to be able to experience a paid brand partnership.
But I’m hoping to reach that goal in my near future.
HOW DID YOU RECOVER FROM A DISCOURAGING MOMENT YOU’VE HAD WITH YOUR BRAND THIS YEAR?
My discouraging moment actually didn’t start this year but started a few years back.
After I graduated college – I feel like I lost myself a bit and I’m not sure why. It may have been because during my time at SCAD – it really took up all of my time since the school work was literally so intense and stressful.
I often pulled all nighters to get projects done and it took a lot of my time and attention away from keeping my Instagram profile consistent.
I was also caught up in the moment of experiencing my new found freedom away from my sheltered upbringing which is also plays a factor in slowly losing myself.
But now it’s 2019, a new year, and I’m ready to get back on my IG game because I know I have the potential to make something out of myself.
HOW DO YOU PLAN OUT THE CONTENT FOR YOUR BRAND’S SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT?
Well, to keep it real, as I’ve mentioned before, my IG game currently hasn’t been the best so I don’t really put much thought into my captions when posting photos these days.
But it’s something that I really want to get back into doing so that I can finish the dream journey I started but never finished! I want to find myself again this year and use the potential that I know I have with.
WHAT WOULD YOU RECOMMEND TO SOMEONE LOOKING TO BECOME AN INFLUENCER?
Just the typical advice, post consistently, look at other influencer pages and then emulate their pages as far as content type and aesthetic.
For more with Grace Huynh head over to her Instagram page @gracehuynh.
