We recently connected with Donna Faaborg and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Donna thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?

One of the biggest unexpected problems working as a creator on social media is imposter syndrome, especially when it comes to knowing what your creative worth is. When I truly started taking my content seriously as a real job that could earn me money, I really low-balled my rates because at the time, many creatives were gatekeeping their posting rates. As such, it was hard to determine what I could or should be charging brands when an opportunity presented itself. Full disclosure, with my 17,000 followers on Instagram, my first year in monetizing my content, I was making sponsored posts for $25. Again, I had no idea what I could charge. The algorithms had changed so much in the recent years that I convinced myself that because I had lost some followers and because my engagement rate wasn’t as high as it had been before that my creative worth was not that high. Even though I knew how to make engaging content, my imposter syndrome convinced me that I was not good enough to charge more. Since then, I have learned to gauge my worth a little more accurately, and part of that is from creators and friends being more open to share what they charge for sponsored posts. But another big factor was just learning to be confident in my abilities and in myself that I am good enough to charge an appropriate amount.

Donna, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a 28 year old lifestyle blogger – born, raised, and currently living in San Diego. I started my journey into being a content creator and social media specialist in 2014 when I started my small business. Around 2018 though is when I wanted more from my page and what I was posting. I wanted to talk more about my personal style, life, and fun activities I was doing. And my followers were immediately supportive. However it wasn’t until 2020 that I started trying to monetize my content. I still post my core content which are posts about me, my life, and the exploring that I do around San Diego and other non-local places. But it has grown into working with brands to promote products and services that I truly believe in or would otherwise have purchased or experienced anyway! There is definitely a big focus on San Diego activities, and I am thankful to have worked with so many amazing local businesses like: Rooftop Cinema Club and the Manchester Grand Hyatt, the Moxy Hotel in downtown, the Brick Bar, the Alice Cocktail Experience, EcoBoat Rentals, and others! Not only that, but I do work with brands in the fashion, home, and accessories department as well. All of this incredible experience posting for these amazing businesses and brands even helped me land a fantastic job as the social media specialist for a casino here in the San Diego County!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson that I had to unlearn was that the total number of followers you have does not determine your success. I have watched so many creators with smaller followings than me create incredible content for brands that at this point in time I have only hoped to work with! At the end of the day, a business does not care about you having a ton of followers. They care much more about the relationship that you have with the people that do follow you. They want to see that they’re engaged with your content and that you’re engaged with them. And working with a creator that can truly connect with their audience is worth far more than an account with tons of followers with no one listening. The backstory behind this is that once upon a time, I was extremely scared that since my account wasn’t actively gaining followers at the same rate as everyone else that I was all but doomed to never be able to compete and work with brands like they were. I was even more scared when I only saw a decline in my followership. However over these last few years, my engagement rate has only gotten stronger, and the relationship I have with my loyal followers is a tight bond. I now look back and thank all the people that left my following because it only brought me closer to the people that were meant to see my posts. My content is now getting pushed to my audience that wants and is excited to see the next thing I post.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

This story will go hand in hand with the previous question about unlearning that your followership is actually not the most important thing for any creator’s page. Back in 2019, I made the huge decision to delete 10,000 followers from my follower count. The reason I did this was because having more followers was not helping me. And the loop giveaways I was doing was unfortunately increasing my followership and decreasing my engagement rate. Why? Because the people who were following me were only after the free thing that I was giving away and had nothing to do with wanting to follow me for my regular content. As such, I decided to go through my whole follower list and start deleting accounts that were spam, dead, bot, or giveaway accounts. It was a hard process but I am very thankful that I did it. However it was truly embarrassing having such a huge following and then in the span of a week, I had dropped 10k. If someone didn’t know any better, they might have thought I had been a part of a major scandal and people were leaving because of my behavior. It was hard coming to terms with the fact that I had willingly deleted that many accounts from my page, but at the end of the day, they were doing nothing for me so they had to go. I beat myself up for a long time afterwards because at the time, many people still did truly believe that your success was directly tied to the amount of followers you had. But in 2020 when I started monetizing my content, I took that baby step into that realm and what I found was that people did still want to work with me. Maybe that’s because I was willing to post about them for $25 though. However now in 2022, I am receiving regular brand deals and negotiating my posting rate with them because I know my worth – and it’s not in my follower count.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://donnagailblog.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/donnagailblog/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donnagailblog
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donna-faaborg/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/donnagailblog
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH5TOOFfzyz0EVgIVv5rnXg
• Other: Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/donnagailblog/ TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@donnagailblog