We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jess Mok a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jess thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s go back in time a bit – can you share a story of a time when you learned an important lesson during your education?

The most important life lesson that I have learned is to not let other people’s opinions control your life. In school, I was always worried about what people would think of me just because growing up, I was the only Asian at my grade schools, maybe 1 or 2 in my grade while growing up but usually I was the only one. Once I got to high school and college not many people made fun of my features as much but it still stuck with me.

Growing up being the only Asian and kids making fun of my facial features made me very insecure and I believe that it also made me very introverted. Growing up, I have always thought to myself “what was wrong with me”, and now that I am older I embrace who I am and how I put myself out there. We are all different in our own ways, we have family’s from all over the world and it should not make you any less of a person.

When I learned this lesson I was not in grade school, I learned this lesson from being on social media and over time I learned to not be afraid of other people and their opinions because the most confident people would not try and tear another person down. A lot of girls grew up thinking that you had to be blonde with blue eyes in order to be pretty, and sometimes social media also praises this too. I love that social media has been changing and seeing more models, content creators, and influencers of color. Everyone should not have to feel insecure or think they have to look a certain way in order to feel/look pretty. If you want to change anything do it for you and not anyone else.

A lot of the times, you see girls trying to become someone they’re not because social standards make them feel like they have to look, dress, and act a certain way in order for them to fit in. I think it is important that girls shouldn’t compare themselves to what they see online. Stop letting other people’s opinions control who you are because in the end you are the one living your life and dreams.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Jess Mok, I am a content creator/influencer based in Scottsdale, Arizona. I was so inspired by the lifestyle that the original YouTubers have I would watch LaurDIY, Adelaine Morin, Sierra Furtado etcetera and I wanted to learn how I can be more like them, so I started my YouTube channel when I was in college in 2018. Not sure how anything worked, but I knew that I was technologically more advanced than most people in my friend group. I started with using my phone and my iPad until I knew this is exactly what I wanted to keep doing, so I invested in my first camera which was the Canon G7x that every vlogger/content creator had.

After graduating from Arizona State, I got my first part-time job, where I met my mindset coach. I didn’t know much about him but I knew that there was something different about him and I wanted to get to know him because I looked forward to his positive energy every time he came in, I dreaded going to work because I had to start at 4 am meaning I had to wake up at 3:30 am. One day we were talking and I told him about my YouTube channel and that was the day he told me to follow him on Instagram and that’s where everything started to change and I knew I wanted to grow my Instagram too.

Not long after we had a few conversations he became my mindset coach. I was always the person to worry about what people would think or say about me which made me feel really insecure and scared of how I presented myself on social media. Then the pandemic happened and I was let go from my job. I started taking my Instagram a little more seriously, but I still felt a little insecure about posing in public over time. I always thought that someone would be able to help me get over my social anxiety but I knew that it was up to me.

Then came TikTok which used to be an app called Musical.ly, this app started blowing up small creators and I thought it was strictly just dancing nothing more so I convinced myself that I needed to teach myself how to dance. After a while I wasn’t feeling very happy about my content because it wasn’t something I was really passionate about so I stopped and put all my focus towards YouTube and Instagram again. Towards the end of 2021 into 2022, I knew I wanted to get back into TikTok, but this time with a different approach. I knew I wanted to inspire and promote more self love with my platform and make it ‘for the girls’.

What I am the most proud of is that I am posting and reaching to the girls who love the feminine energy. I want to keep uplifting girls, growing up I was always jealous of how girls were “prettier than me” now that I’m older I never think anyone’s prettier because that’s what makes the world go ’round; being different. We are all beautiful no one is ever truly ugly, unless it’s their personality. We love girls supporting girls.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I think what helped me build my reputation is just constantly posting every single day whenever I get the chance to, it does not matter where I am if I have time I will post as much as I can on TikTok and reuse that content for Instagram Reels, sometimes on YouTube shorts, as well as on Pinterest. Staying consistent in what you’re passionate about is a full time job by itself, you have to keep posting and make sure that you’re consistent because there are so many other people out there trying to or want to become an influencer/content creator as well. With that being said, there’s always that chance where a newcomer will be a hit and then maybe you’re forgotten.

Another thing that has helped me build my reputation is supporting other big or small creators as well, I think this is super important for each of us to grow as an individual. By supporting other creators you comment, like, or share what they have posted on any of their social media pages as well as following each other. Having other influencer/content creator friends is helpful because we can all come to each other for advice or when negotiating with a brand. Most of the packages we get as an influencer/content creator are PR packages, which also helps with building our relationships with different brands.

Working with different brands also helps with building a reputation, it’s like building a résumé. Most influencers accepts their packages without getting paid and instead we are building that relationship with the brand and our audience. Building a relationship and trust with our audience is very important so never accept a collaboration you are not passionate about.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Building my audience on social media did not come overnight. When I first started I was only at about 1000 followers and I had no idea how to build my social media presence online. Even when TikTok started I was using my old account but then I pulled the trigger and started brand new with a new account. With Instagram, I downloaded every single app possible that I could make sure my feed looked aesthetically pleasing but now I just edit my photos the way I want and what I think looks good and what I’m happy with.

Like I said in the beginning that building my online presence didn’t come overnight. It wasn’t like a get ready with me TikTok video like Alix Earle who is now a huge influencer that blew up overnight. For those just starting to build their online presence also need to make sure that this is what you want to do and make sure that this is what makes you happy because a lot of people will say sometimes social media can be toxic. Let me explain. A lot of people think that with social media you have to meet a certain standard, and some think that everyone’s always happy and they get to travel anywhere and everywhere they want, or you see a girl going to Sephora and shopping every single day. Which isn’t realistic unless they have a huge following. No one ever posts themselves when they’re having a breakdown or when something is wrong. I do see more and more people posting a YouTube video and spreading more mental health awareness.

My advice to those out there wanting to start building their social media presence make sure that this is truly what you want, if this is exactly what you want to do posting consistently. I always see people saying posting at a certain time but for me personally I just post whenever and hope the algorithm just picks it up and reaches to my audience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hoo.be/jessmok
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jess.mokk
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/_jessmok
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jessmok