The arrival of the 21st century and with it, social networks has made the profession of digital creator, or better known as influencer, become one of the new professions in proliferation and better paid, but also one of the most criticized by many for "not considering it a job."
Their work focuses mainly on working with brands to achieve a mutual benefit. Also, the content they upload daily is very important because they must entertain and "feed" their followers to get them to stay and thus add more.
Lanzarote also has some influencers with whom La Voz has spoken to learn more about this profession with so many lovers and haters in equal parts. Álvaro Jiménez (@alv_jimenez) is 31 years old and is from Tahíche although he currently resides on the island of Tenerife. The young man currently has more than 22,000 followers on Instagram and his journey began in 2012 with a fashion blog and used social networks, which at that time did not have as much impact, to give visibility to the publications.
"In 2019, having had a social media experience and having worked in social media and collaborated with brands, I decided to professionalize it and study it, and after working for three years in marketing, I founded the agency that I have today," says Jiménez. It is a digital marketing and influencer representation agency in the Canary Islands.
Another of the great influencers from Lanzarote is Laura Ramírez (@depetitsmoments), who has almost 100,000 followers on Instagram. Born in Arrecife 32 years ago, she also started with a fashion blog where she shared the looks she created herself and where she talked about fashion trends. "Then I linked the blog to Instagram where I showed my day to day and little by little I began to notice interactions and I began to share tips," says Ramírez.
The influencer, in addition to working with content creation, also does so in the family business dedicated to the construction sector. As if that were not enough, she also has her own clothing store, a project she launched a year and a half ago.
How an influencer's work develops
According to Álvaro Jiménez, "90% of the content is usually organic, which means that we are not paid for it but we need to maintain them and be constantly active so that our statistics and our community remain active." From there is when brands contact content creators to work because what they are looking for is for the client to have an impact on networks.
The work behind it is more laborious than it may seem because it is not just about uploading a video and that's it. "Behind it there is a work of negotiation and communication with the company and a closing of the conditions, what is to be communicated about the campaign or what is the line of communication," explains the influencer.
"Once the above is established, when we proceed to the creative part and once we have this approved is when we proceed to the recording, editing and validation of the content and, if required, to make certain modifications," he continues.
However, the work does not end here because after the publication of the content, a kind of report with the statistics is delivered to the company that is advertised, that is, the impact that the content has had on networks.
This profession involves managing many edges, so the workload can be large, as is the case with Laura Ramírez. "My day starts at half past seven in the morning because I go to work in the family business and then when I leave I go to my store, where I create content and organize orders to suppliers and, in between, I dedicate time to Instagram," she says.
The impact more than the number of followers
What really matters to the brand are the statistics, the number of visits and the reach that the publication has had. Therefore, there are influencers who do not have too many followers but that brands select to collaborate.
"There are influencers with 15,000 followers who can be monetizing their social networks better than profiles that have 50,000 because they do not have well-planned content strategies or because simply the communities they have are not monetizable because they follow them for other reasons," he indicates.
"Currently I could tell you that less than 10% of content creators live exclusively from social networks, at least in the Canary Islands, because it is like a separate industry," says Jiménez.
Based on his experience with his company, he explains that "there are still many brands, especially in the Canary Islands, that are a little reluctant to this type of support but luckily, every year we add more customers." Restoration, fashion, travel agencies, wineries or cosmetics are some of the sectors that most demand this service in networks.
The brands are the ones that contact the content creators to carry out the collaborations and in the case of Laura Ramírez, she only works with brands "with which she identifies" and with which she feels "represented by her values." "What I am looking for is that the collaboration is authentic and brings some value to my community," she says. For this she has the help of Tangente Digital, the agency of Álvaro Jiménez.
A job without vacations
Although it is not a hard job, being a digital creator requires being constant on social networks and updating the content daily to be able to maintain the followers and increase them. "I have not known vacations as such for almost three years since I decided to start, so vacations as such of being more than two days disconnected one hundred percent is impossible," says the Lanzarote native.
However, the most comfortable part of this job is that you can take it anywhere. "I can work from anywhere and I have an organizational capacity that only depends on me," he expresses.
"It is a fairly intense rhythm but with organization and passion everything can be carried out and, although it is exhausting, it is also very rewarding to see how that effort bears fruit," says the influencer. In addition, the young woman has the help of her partner, both in the store and in the management of Instagram.
Regarding the opinions of many about that this profession is not a job as such, Jiménez responds that "it is a very privileged job and it is very well paid but it should not be demonized nor idolized or romanticized because it is still a super privileged job but not all that glitters is gold."
In this aspect, Laura Ramírez believes that "I understand that from the outside it may seem that it is not a traditional job because it is something new but being a content creator involves much more than what is seen on social networks and it is a profession that requires time and dedication because behind each photo, video or campaign there are hours of planning, production, editing, negotiations with brands and others."
