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

Hi Chiugo, thanks for joining us today. Innovation comes in all shapes, sizes and across all industries, so we’d love to hear about something you’ve done that you feel was particularly innovative.

Before I enter a new industry, I do extensive research before and while I take on the endeavor. While researching the influencer industry as I took on the role full-time in 2022, I was constantly met with the insistence of choosing one niche, one mode of marketing myself. I couldn’t understand restricting my need to express myself in as many ways as possible. But I knew I needed to conform somewhat to the need for a niche as that would help brands find my social media. At the same time, I was pursuing a career in copywriting and needed to build a portfolio.

A lightbulb lit up in my head when I realized I could use my influencing career to aid in the building of my copywriting portfolio. The problem of needing a niche continued to nag at me and butt heads with my love of digitally sharing my photography, modeling, illustration, storytelling, digital art, and ways I use the aforementioned art forms to heal.

I don’t go down without a fight and continued to research. Through my continued research, I crafted a unique way to market myself as an influencer, build the copywriting skills I needed, and retain my identity as an artist: art healing. I became an Art Healing Influencer because it allowed me to infuse photography, illustration, storytelling, fashion, beauty, and healing modalities into my work, and it worked! I’ve gained 23+ influencer partnerships in the last two years because I refused to niche down. Not niching down, in fact, forced me to share more of my art online.

Many have come to me saying that I inspire them through my creative approach to my career. My creative journey teaches people how to conform while retaining their identities. My creative journey teaches people that human beings are not niches. We are complex, multi-dimensional beings. I know that I cannot follow the same roadmap that others created, and I encourage others to ask themselves if that is their reality as well.

Chiugo, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

When people hear or read the words “Chiugo Akujuobi”, I want those words to be synonymous with “community nurturer”.

I saw a gap in community nurturance on social media as I greatly credit my successes to my years of nurturing my online communities via Instagram (@Mx.Chiugo) and TikTok (@Mx.Chiugo2). This pain point inspired me transfer the skills I’ve learned through years of therapy; continued research into psychology, sociology, and economics; my spiritual practice; and attention to astrological knowledge to create digital spaces of radical self-acceptance. Thanks to my dedication to showing up as myself—online and offline—I’ve built a name for myself as an embracer of difference and change.

My focus on nurturing the self and one’s community have earned me 2,700+ Instagram and 3,500+ TikTok followers as people desperately and rightfully crave spaces to be their full selves.

The fruits of my digital calls for a world where we refuse to neglect our authentic selves don’t stop at the following I’ve built: at the age of 21, I graced the August 2020 cover of OutSmart Magazine, Houston’s premier LGBTQ+ publication. My calls continue to reverberate and earned me features in the Houston Chronicle, VoyageHouston, and now, CanvasRebel.

I want nothing more than to nurture the online communities of others as I’ve experienced the power of digital community nurturance. Due to this calling, I offer my services as a Social Media Consultant.

As a Social Media Consultant, I manage the social media of businesses and organizations in the non-profit, beauty, and slow fashion industries. I additionally focus on small to medium sized companies looking to increase brand awareness and brand recognition for their commitment to deeply caring about the well-being of their audiences.

If you need a nurtured social media audience (and we truly all do), reach out to me via email at [email protected] or through my website [chiugoakujuobi.com](http://chiugoakujuobi.com/).

My framework for social media consulting includes outreach, content creation, research, and audience engagement. My years of social media management have taught me that these four tenets cannot exist without the other when building a nurtured social media audience.

Outreach allows for other brands, and future customers and audience members to know of your brand.

Content creation allows for already established audiences to continue to receive nurturance and attracts social media users seeking the information you provide in your own special and needed way.

Research allows for social listening to find your target audience’s pain points that you/your brand can mend.

Audience engagement, similarly to content creation, allows for your already established audience to feel cared for and seen as more than a number or means to increase conversation rates.

My framework not only leaves your audiences nurtured but also increases your inbound leads as seen through my successes thanks to my social media presence.

People simply want to be seen, and businesses simply want to improve and reach their KPI targets. Both objectives are achieved with the help of Chiugo Akujuobi, Social Media Consultant.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of living life as “Chiugo Akujuobi, the artist” is the fact that I get to re-image the world in not only my image but the image of those who hold marginalized identities. Being an artist and a creative person extends far past just the artistic works I produce and go into my queer identity.

I’m a nonbinary, sexually fluid, Nigerian artist. Being queer in a culture that greatly frowns upon my queer identity to the point of illegality has made me see being queer as a force for creativity. I saw a tweet once that essentially stated that being queer opens up the world and calls for you to reimagine the reality you, we’ve been forced to accept as our own.

Queerness is an art in many ways. It does not allow you to see the world as it has always been because the world has always been and still is heteronormative, homophobic, patriarchal, misogynoiristic. Queer people do not exist in the status quo. Our identities are art as we get to envision and shape a world beyond the status quo. And this isn’t to say that queer people do not succumb to the status quo but to say that we are not the status quo.

Embracing my queerness has breathed a life of limitless freedom into me because I am a blank canvas as a nonbinary person. I can dress, feel, be, see, whoever and however I wish. I am everything and nothing all at once and that is an experience that brings tears to my eyes simply thinking about it. I am everything and nothing all at once and that is an experience that brings tears to my eyes simply thinking about it.

I am free while living with the risk of prosecution. I am free because I am me. I am free because I inherently cannot and have never been anything other than queer, anything other than me.

I am art.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I say I wasn’t the best student in college even though I graduated with a 3.3 GPA from Scripps College. I say this because I focused most of my time on people, on building relationships, on staying up an extra hour in the library talking to friends. I have always been a people person, so much so that I majored in Organizational Studies, concentrated in Economics, and minored in Africana Studies. I wanted to understand the motives behind the groups, the networks, the communities people form and how that informs their spending habits. I live to hear the stories stored in each of us and how our tales intersect.

My social media centers on storytelling. I’m learning more and more every day why people care about my story; why people seek me out to be featured in publications such as the Houston Chronicle, VoyageHouston, CanvasRebel, and OutSmart Magazine. I have a tale to tell of triumph, of instability, of self-discovery in a world that relentlessly assumes it knows us better than we know ourselves.

I expose these truths of the world online and give solutions on how to fight against conformity when necessary. I essentially give my audience lesson plans and a syllabus on how to know oneself because I am so myself. And embodying the full “Chiugo” has gotten me so immensely far.

My social media communicates the idea that it is truly a privilege not afforded to us all to be so oneself. I strive, through my content, to communicate that there exists a reality, a world where people are celebrated for their perceived deficiencies, deformities, differences. My online content strives to create a world where I and others are allowed to be complex, flawed, imperfect people. I make sure my audience knows that I am someone authentic. I define an authentic person as someone who doesn’t always accept people for their flaws–accept myself for my flaws–but nevertheless sees the importance of doing so and works to correct themselves when they fall short of following their own advice.

When you swipe onto my brightly colored, photography, modeling, illustration-spotted Instagram—for example—you will see someone who embraces the complexity of humanity. I offer my audiences the nuance of life that I often see is missing online.

My academic studies and “people studies” gifted me the nuanced perspective that you are not a “bad person” for doing a “bad thing”. But you must know that you control your ability to do more “bad things” and control your ability to show yourself compassion when you inevitably, in human fashion, do another “bad thing”.

I gather from the kind, thoughtful, and heartwarming messages followers and friends have sent me that I teach people the importance of striking a balance between serving others and serving oneself. It is not a “bad thing” to treat yourself with due respect and a love that is truly healthy and not the love we’ve been sold. That aforementioned balance is desperately needed to live a life full of healthy love.

Chiugo Akujuobi, the online presence, teaches people that just because something is imperfect does not mean it isn’t absolutely, earth-shatteringly beautiful. The perceived flaws are where your beauty and humanity are stored.

My biggest advice to those just starting to build their social media presence is to be intentional about being imperfect, intentional about your growth methods. Be strategic: study the content of brands you enjoy, ask yourself why you enjoy it, figure out how to adapt their tactics for your social media, decide which trends you want to follow (because not every one is worth your time), and be patient with your growth. You can gain thousands of followers overnight, but it takes time, effort, and strategy to not only retain that audience but to grow it. Finally, focus on nurturing yourself and those around you because, in turn, it provides a clear roadmap on how to nurture an audience.

Contact Info:

• Website: Chiugoakujuobi.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/mx.chiugo
• Linkedin: Linkedin.com/in/chiugoa
• Other: TikTok.com/@mx.chiugo TikTok.com/@mx.chiugo2 Linktr.ee/Chiugo

Image Credits
Chiugo Akujuobi Valentine Ollawa (Photo in a red jacket and brown pants)