We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Angela Liguori. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Angela below.

Angela, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

To be successful, you need a lot of things but first and foremost you need a genuine passion, drive, and mission behind your company. I am a strong believer that if you don’t love what you’re doing, what you’re creating, etc., it will never be as successful as if you were doing something you truly had a passion for.

Over the years of being an outdoor creator, I have realized that I can tell who has a passion for nature and who doesn’t. It shows over time and that is the thing that is halting their success.

If we let what we’re passionate about guide us, we can figure out all the rest.

Angela, 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?

My name is Angela and I’m an outdoor photographer and creator. I have cultivated an incredible community of over 1.6 million adventure-loving humans across Instagram, TikTok, my blog, and more. My mission is to get as many people outdoors as possible, educate on proper gear and etiquette, and connect people together.

I never had my eyes set on being a creator or in the social media space at all. The term ‘influencer’ was not around in the early days of Instagram. The story of how I grew a community and stepped into this space was really natural—which I am so proud of.

I’ve always been an outdoor lover, mostly thanks to my dad. He always took my sisters and me on camping trips and hikes mostly around our home province, British Columbia. When I was in my late teens I started to go outside every weekend with friends and I’d post a photo from my iPhone or GoPro to my Instagram for my family and friends to see. Over the years, my following slowly grew but I didn’t pay much attention to it. My attention was on the outdoors. Once I got to around 10,000 Instagram followers (which was pretty big for 2015/2016), my sister sat me down and had a chat with me. She had a marketing background and saw the potential in this field way before I did, so she urged me to put a bit more effort into my Instagram because it could become a job one day.

After this conversation, I kicked into gear. I practiced photography, share more photos online, met new people, learned about the business (how to land jobs, how to read contracts, negotiate, etc.) and so much more. I was also able to connect myself with some creators trying to do the same thing as me so we bound together and started helping each other. Keep in mind that I did this all while working a full-time job. That meant a lot of early mornings and late nights—and to this day, I don’t know how I did it all. It was a lot of work but these years were truly transformative because I realized just how much I loved to share the outdoors with people.

Juggling a social life, staying present with my family, and staying active were starting to be a struggle so after a lot of thought, I finally took the leap and quit my full-time job. Since then, I’ve been making a living off of social media (Instagram and TikTok), content creation for brands, affiliate marketing via my blog, photo licensing, modeling, group trips, and more.

My career stemmed from my passion and I am so grateful that I get to work in this field. With a lot of work, learning, and discipline (and a little bit of luck with the timing of the rise of creators or ‘influencers’), I’m able to be where I am.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

I treat my social media platforms as a resume—because they are! I want potential clients to look at my work online and say ‘I want our brand to be shown here’.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

I love talking with clients and building a relationship with them—so I struggle with hiring a manager because that connection will be lost. When you build personal relationships with clients I believe they will hire you back over someone else they don’t know yet—assuming they value your work.

There are a few things you can do to connect with your clients and foster brand loyalty. I try and push video calls with clients so that we can connect way more than if we solely chatted via email. Asking for feedback is a great way to share that you want to ensure that you’re hitting the mark exactly how they want so they know you are taking your partnership seriously. Also, I think it’s nice to send an email to the client thanking them for the collaboration when it has wrapped up. I also check in from time to time and ask them how they are doing and if there are any new opportunities coming up that I could be a good fit for. For me, it’s all about being professional but also letting my genuine and friendly personality shine through.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://angelaliggs.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/angelaliggs/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/angelaliggs
• Linkedin: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/angelaliguori
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/angelaliggs?lang=en
• Titkok: https://www.tiktok.com/@angelaliggs