Social Media: A Pastime or Legit Career?

Lerato Kutumela, a nano-influencer with a keen eye for fashion, beauty, and lifestyle content, shares her personal views on being an influencer and what she does to ensure engagement with her audience, all while building a brand for herself.

As I wait in the Journalism Department for Lerato, my expectations of who she may be vary. In comes this boisterous, bubbly girl, laughing and smiling, and I mean all of that. This really draws anyone’s eye to her immediately. She does not need to pretend; she is just the moment.

Enlightening me about how her career began, she explains, “Take who you are, what you like, and put it out to the world. There isn’t a template to being an influencer”. This is self-explanatory and just pure Lerato energy. We continued to speak about her passion for social media as Lerato explained how influencing can become a career. “As opposed to popular belief that a career is centred around conventional paths such as Medicine, Law, Engineering, Education or Science, social media has also now become a recognized career,” she said. She mentioned that social media has become the modern and popular mode of communication, advertising, and partnerships. “It’s a full-time job that can be mentally draining. You consistently need to put a lot of effort into creating content and planning”, she admitted. Lerato also mentions that factors such as location and the right outfit are essential. “There have been times where I’ve created content, and it didn’t get the engagement I was hoping for and ended up wasting a day of shooting content,” she says with a deep sigh.

Hoping to reach Mihlali Ndamase’s work ethic, her inspiration, Lerato sees Mihlali’s success as an excellent example of how social media can effectively develop a personal brand. Mihlali has established herself as a leading personality in the beauty and lifestyle industries because of her strong social media presence. She has developed a devoted following and established herself as an authority in her profession by continuously publishing quality content, interacting with her followers, and working with other influencers and businesses. Influencers like Mihlali will undoubtedly continue to play a crucial role in aspiring influencers’ careers like Lerato and trends as social media continues to develop.

Lerato is well on her way to becoming a riveting social media personality with her trendy fashion sense and aesthetically pleasing pictures. She embodies the ultimate IT Girl, always spotted rocking the latest fashion looks and creating chic reels for her audience to indulge in. She eats and leaves no crumbs.

Although serving quality content, influencers receive a lot of backlash. The “welcome to a day in my life” community, imposters, bad influences, or even fakes are some of the few stereotypes attached to influencers. However, people shouldn’t let these misconceptions stop them from recognizing the numerous hours of preparation, execution, and editing that go into videos and posts created by influencers.

There are many debates on social media influencers and their lifestyle, but do we really know how many challenges they face? It’s a very competitive industry, so they need to ensure their content is always relevant. If you are a go-getter, know your product, and how to capture an audience, then this is a great start. It is also important to stay truthful to your content and be willing to put in the labour of making this a resourceful career.

Just do it. And to all the critics, stfu.