Trina is a beauty and fashion creator with a focus on skincare and just hit 45,000 subscribers on YouTube 🎉 With her skincare videos and tutorials, Trina hopes to teach and inform women over 40 the advantages of taking care of your skin and what beauty devices out there can help. We are so lucky to have her join as the next Creative In Residence.
Listen to Tina’s curated playlist::
Trina’s Tips and Tricks on how to stay true to yourself:
#1 Be discerning
As a skincare creator, it’s easy to fall into a routine of simply reviewing products as they are sent from brands. I get many PR packages with new beauty products every week; I appreciate receiving all of these products and will always unbox them on my IG Stories. However, when thinking about creating additional content for a product or brand, I try to stay true to my niche and only post about products that align with what I believe in – and that will resonate well with my audience. Authenticity has been very important to me as I’ve grown my channels.
Another important factor for my channels is clean beauty. Lately, I like to say that I “lean toward clean”, and while it’s been a process, I always look at the ingredients before agreeing to test out a product. Brands that are transparent with their customers tend to be more successful, and ingredient transparency is a huge part of this success.
Skincare is different than makeup in that you rarely see results right away or even overnight. It takes time to test out new skincare and find out if it works well for your skin – and that it does what it promises to do. For this reason, skincare collabs are sometimes tricky to work into my content calendar. Brands often end up waiting longer than they would like for me to roll out a campaign, but there really is no way around it if you’re trying to create authentic content.
Bottom line: It’s OK to say no if a product doesn’t fit in with your channel niche or your timeline. I’ve said no in the past to some brand deals that were difficult to walk away from, but in the end, it kept me open to receiving offers from brands that were more aligned with my channel – so I have no regrets.
#2 Know your worth
Research what rates you should be charging via services like Social Bluebook and put together a media kit. Many brands will reach out asking you to post in exchange for product. While there are always exceptions, product doesn’t pay the bills, and you have to be prepared to walk away from a collab if a brand is undervaluing your work.
#3 Ask your audience
Whenever it makes sense, ask your audience for feedback about the content you plan to create. For example, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube all have polls you can post on your pages to ask people for feedback on your ideas, and gain insights about topics they care about. I use polls and other interactive posts regularly to engage my community and make them feel like they are part of the process. I also like to ask questions to my audience when filming videos, and then incorporate their feedback into future videos via shout outs. This makes my channels feel like a community.
#4 Wear sunscreen!
As I just turned 45, if there is one piece of advice I could give to myself in my 20s, it would be wear sunscreen every day! I deal with so much hyperpigmentation today as a result of my poor skincare habits when I was younger. If you have the opportunity to wear sunscreen on your face, neck, chest, ears, back of hands, etc DO IT!
