Mom influencers often make headlines for portraying an unrealistic lifestyle or suggesting outrageous must-have products. Alyce Chan never dreamed she’d take on the mom influencer label when she logged onto Instagram for the first time in 2017.
Before that, she had paused doing comedy live to be a stay-at-home parent for three years. She desperately missed going on stage and telling jokes in front of an audience. Doing that was her creative outlet, and she missed the fulfillment it gave her.
She decided to write down jokes on paper and share them on Instagram with other parents. She never thought that her account, which had just 250 followers, would take off and land her the title of mom influencer.
But that’s precisely what happened. After meme and parenting accounts started sharing her posts, her following grew quickly.
Today, she has over 150,000 followers on Instagram and has worked with brands like Dasani, See’s Candies, Natalie’s OJ, and more. Brands pay her to create reels for them and post them on her platform.
Chan told Passionfruit more about how she became a mom influencer and monetized her account. These are her top tips for other mom influencers on Instagram or TikTok.
How to become a Mom influencer, and what can you learn from Alyce Chan?
1) Create content for other accounts to boost your own
As Chan’s Instagram account grew, she was noticed by a popular mom website, Scary Mommy, and started creating content for them. Getting featured on their platform helped Chan boost her following and motivated her to take content creation more seriously.
“I try to create content every day,” Chan told Passionfruit. “I keep the growth by engaging with my community, giving my followers a sense of trust, and making sure they see a very human side of me.
She advises anyone who wants to enter the mommy influencers space to be authentic and honest with their content since it helps gain an audience’s trust.
2) Content creation isn’t 24/7
As a mom influencer, it can be tricky to show up for your online audience and stay present with your kids offline too. Chan has worked on a strategy that allows her to do both.
When her kids are at school, she spends 3-5 hours a day working on content for Instagram. She engages with her audience, writes new ideas, and records videos. Once the kids are home, if she has leftover work, she does it when they go to bed. Though, Chan admits that sometimes it means she does stay up way too late.
3) A mom influencer often films with her kids
Most mom influencers find opportunities to include their kids in their social media content. Chan has a rule about this.
“I only involve my kids if they want to be in a video or if it really calls for it,” she said.
She also usually involves using their voices or the back of their heads.
During the pandemic, Chan says she would record silly dance videos with her kids or film something happening in real-time.
“For example, I would record my kid telling me a long story about earthworms, but the camera would point directly at my face showing how completely bored I was,” she said.
A significant benefit of this was that Chan could work on growing her platforms as a mom influencer by creating new content and spending time with her kids.
However, Chan wants her mom influencer brand to be about her, not her kids. But as her kids have gotten older, she said they are now interested in the process and want to be involved more.
4) Find a way to stand out as a mom influencer
Since the mom influencer niche on Instagram and TikTok is saturated, Chan said her content took off because she found a way to stand out.
“I’m honest and not always put together,” she said. “I show a raw side of parenthood but make it light and humorous.”
While some mom influencers portray a more buttoned-up lifestyle, Chan’s mission is to make motherhood less lonely, and every piece of content she puts out embodies that.
When she’s brainstorming ideas, she taps into real-life experiences. She often creates videos about things that just happened or something that has occurred recently.
5) Additional tips
If you’re wondering how to become a mom influencer and want to be a TikTok influencer or mom influencer on Instagram, Chan recommended finding a way to stand out and embrace those traits in your content.
“More importantly, have fun creating. If you are not enjoying the process, it’ll come through in your content,” she said.
