Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Selah Victor. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Selah, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?
So the “full-time” part ebbs and flows of course, but I have made a “decent” living from my creative work, and could probably make more if I wasn’t also a full time stay at home Mom! When I first moved to Los Angeles almost 20 years ago, I thought I would be cast on a series immediately…little did I know! I did have some luck right away getting cast in commercials and small co-stars, but they were all few and far between and I definitely needed to keep my side hustles going. I actually didn’t start making a decent living until a little over 2 years ago when the pandemic started. All of the sudden, production was scarce and I couldn’t rely on acting jobs, so I pivoted a bit and started to explore the world of content creation on social media (mostly Instagram and TikTok). I did a lot of research to learn how to grow as a creative on those platforms, and slowly but surely I built my following. I remember in the beginning I couldn’t get a brand to email me back, and now I have brands contacting me to collaborate! It’s so awesome because I’m getting paid to create “commercials” so to speak, where I am the producer, star, and editor! At the same time, I am still able to act on TV and film, but I definitely diversified my portfolio. I would say that to anyone wanting to make a living as a creative…being a creative doesn’t necessarily mean one thing. You can make money “performing” on social media or in so many other ways!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
I am best known for my work portraying the role of Chloe Bourgeois on the hit Disney Plus animated series Miraculous Ladybug. I can also be seen all over your favorite TV and film comedies such as “Modern Family”, “The Office”, and “Maron”, and I perform stand up comedy and theater all over Los Angeles. I am also a “mom-fluencer” with over 300,000 followers on TikTok and Instagram. I love to show my audience Hollywood life and Mom life, with a side of funny!
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I was lucky in that I had a built in audience through the show I am on, Miraculous Ladybug. However, I only had about 8,000 followers when I first started trying to build my audience on Instagram 2 years ago, and now I have 40,000! My method included posting every single day, showing up on stories, following social media manager accounts, and really researching the trends and tips for Instagram and TikTok. I bought courses from famous influencers and studied it as though it was a new craft. And it truly is!
The other thing I did was to try to stop posting content that was about pleasing myself, and instead to try to think of it as what does my audience WANT. Do they really want to see every photo of my kid? Or do they want something funny or interesting etc? It was hard for me at first to switch from looking at Instagram as a scrapbook to looking at it as a business, but I wanted to make money on the platform so that’s what I needed to do.
I have not totally been able to master TikTok yet, but I am trying to apply the same strategies above that I did to Instagram!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Around 2014, I was dropped for the third time by a voiceover agent after not booking anything. I said to myself, “that’s it, I’m quitting, no more voiceover.” I had worked for a long time in the field but it had changed significantly with the presence of celebrities taking a lot of the old VO jobs. Several months later, a friend of mine told me she was working on an animated show so I asked if I could send her my demo. She sent it to the director and he cast me in the show! It was just a little part, but then he brought me in to audition for another show that turned out to be Miraculous Ladybug and the rest is history! It really just goes to show, a winner never quits and a quitter never wins!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.selahvictor.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/selahvictor
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/selahvictor
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/selah_v
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SelahVictorTVNOW
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@selahvictor
Image Credits
Knocked Up Photography Monkeys and Peas Photography