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

Rachel, appreciate you joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

The biggest risk I ever took was during the summer of 2020 – a pandemic had taken over the world and everyone was staying indoors, working from home, and minimizing any physical contact with friends and family. It was a weird and a new time for everyone – and we were all adjusting to what was our “new normal”. Everyone had their own way of coping with not being able to physically be around one another, whether that be baking, having zoom happy hours, or playing board games. I chose a different path – by applying to be on reality TV. I didn’t think much of it when I saw the ad on Twitter, but figured it would be a fun way to fill my time. I chugged a glass of wine and hit record on my iPhone. After submitting my audition tape it wasn’t long before I found myself on multiple zoom auditions with Netflix producers – being casted for one of the biggest worldwide reality TV shows in the world. Before I knew it I was flying across the world to UK to be put on TV. The biggest risk I could have taken paid off more than I could have ever dreamt! I found my best friends, had experiences I will cherish forever, and have had so many awesome opportunities come from taking a small risk and pressing record on that iPhone in the middle of a pandemic.

Rachel, 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?

Hi! I’m Rachel Ward, a 26-year-old from Santa Monica, California. I have always loved creating content, making relatable TikToks, and creating the perfect Instagram post. But where I really got my start was taking part in Netflix’s The Circle Season 3 where I played my best friends boyfriend, Jackson. Since the show has aired, I have grown over my platforms to over 100,000 followers combined.

My content ranges from dating and lifestyle to fashion, beauty, and pop culture. I have created a dedicated fan base not only from my start on reality TV, but I have been able to cultivate a relationship with my followers by creating genuine, authentic content and simply being myself.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Although I have gotten a large portion of my following from being on reality TV, I have learned a lot about social media and growing platforms since the show has aired. I have found the most success in building audiences through focusing on the following three categories: 1. Consistency: Posting regularly and consistently on social media helps you build and maintain real relationships with your audience. The content you publish on a regular basis will continue to establish your credibility and increase trust with your audience. Each month I make goals on my most used platforms re: how much I want to publish a week.
2. Engagement: After you post consistently – the next most important thing I have found to do is to engage with my audience. If I get a nice comment – I reply. If I get a DM, I try and respond within a timely manner. Of course it gets hard to sift through hundreds of DMs and realistically you can’t get back to everyone – but I try my hardest to acknowledge people who took the time out of their day to message me or comment on a post. By doing this, I am creating a real, genuine relationship with my followers. I feel like I know them personally and they feel the same about me. This is probably my favorite part about having and growing an audience – I feel like I have my own little family online :).
3. Relatability: A core aspect of my content that I try to push a lot is relatability. For so long I have looked at other creatives and influencers and thought “why can’t I look that good?” “why does my content not come out perfect like theirs?” Until I realized that the reason I have my own following is that they like me for ME. And they like my content because it’s unique and authentic to me. Relatability is staying true to myself and my content and creating relatable, realistic, authentic content for my audience.

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

I learned a lot about myself through going on tv, and even though I already knew I was a resilient person, my experience on reality tv really proved to me just how resilient I was. From start to finish the process was extremely challenging from a mental perspective – think about it. You fly across the country to be isolated in a room, by yourself, with 8 videos camera constantly pointed at you! The mental hoops I jumped through on a daily basis on TV were extremely hard to get through, but I did it. After the show had aired, I experienced a wave of new experiences with my newly built audience. And although from the outside people only saw the “good”, there was a whole lot of “bad”. Mean comments and DMs flooded my inboxes on social media every morning when I woke up. I had to delete Twitter for over 5 months until I was ready to be on the platform again. The whole experience from start to finish really showed me the saying “you can’t please everyone” rings true. And although the “hate” I got felt like it was the end of the world, I persevered and now I can say I am the strongest version of myself I have ever been now.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachelward_/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-ward-/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/rachelwardd_
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@rachelwardxo