Hikari Fleurr - Mastering the World of Content Creation
My name is Hikari Fleurr and I’m a 27 year old Beauty and Lifestyle Digital Creator and Author from NYC. I first started my journey in 2017. In the beginning, I actually wanted to be a model. I used YouTube and Instagram to market myself by uploading beauty tutorials. Shockingly, my first couple of tutorials went extremely viral and my life as an Influencer began overnight. After going viral I woke up to so many emails from brands wanting to pay me for creating content. At that time, I had no idea that it could even be someone’s career. I was amazed how much brands valued Content Creator’s work and their reviews.
Being a Content Creator has had its pros and cons. I’ve had the opportunity to attend many exclusive events. I’ve been to several movie premieres, holiday parties and festivals. I’ve worked with many prestigious brands such as L’Oréal, Sephora Collection, Ralph Lauren and Marvel Studios. I’ve met amazing people in this industry and made great connections with. A large component of being an Influencer is networking. You never know who you will meet.
As exciting as it is to be an Influencer, there are some downsides to it as well. Going viral brought me a large and supportive fan base, however, being reposted by extremely large following pages also exposes you to cyber bullying. I’ve had people criticize my makeup skills, bash me for my personal opinions and even send me threatening messages. Many people on the internet forget there is an actual human being behind the content who has real life feelings and emotions. Going viral also exposes you to creeps who make fake pages of you, which can be irritating because those pages often scam brands pretending to be you.
People always ask me, “how did you become an Influencer?”. In 2020, I launched my first e-book “How To Be A Successful Influencer”, which teaches people how to build a relationship with their followers , how to master the Instagram algorithm, and how to get on brands’ PR lists. After the pandemic, I launched another e-book in 2021 “How To Be A Successful Influencer POST PANDEMIC”. Since 2020, social media has changed significantly. TikTok became extremely popular, Instagram Reels were newly launched, and remote work became very normalized. As the world evolves, so should people’s social media techniques. The second e-book teaches you how to grow a following on TikTok, how to pitch yourself to brands, how to communicate professionally and it also gives you resources to better your content’s aesthetic.
Three tips I would give to anyone that wants to make money through social media, is to network, practice consistency and post quality or quantity. This goes for anyone in the arts; not just Digital Creators. Always network because that brings opportunities. You always want to find the founders, PR specialists, and social media managers. Consistency guarantees results. A Lot of people struggle with consistency because it requires discipline, but once you’ve mastered discipline, consistency will become second nature to you. Consistency is essential when it comes to building trust with your audience. However, you should always be consistent with quality content. Quality content is valuable content for your followers, whether it’s something informative, entertaining or relatable. Always ask yourself, is this content teaching my followers, amusing my followers or comforting to them? Those questions are extremely important.
If I weren’t a Digital Creator, I honestly don’t know what I would be in life. This career definitely chose me and I’m forever grateful for it. I have experienced some of the greatest times of my life during this journey, as well as the most challenging. I encourage people in the arts to go after their dreams and aspirations because it’s not impossible to achieve them. I also encourage women to pursue entrepreneurship no matter how saturated their desired field may be. There may be hundreds of people doing the same thing as you, but there will never be another you. People will support you because of your originality and your branding.