A look at how Charlotte content creators are shaping the city online and off

For many people, a typical Monday is pretty much spent at an office behind a desk.

But recently for Sydney Bernhardt, some of it was spent in the middle of a busy uptown Charlotte crosswalk, trying to weave through the hustle and bustle of the city crowd and traffic — with an iPhone and a tripod in hand — to capture the perfect shot to post on Instagram.

Why? Because it’s part of her job as a social media influencer.

If you’re not familiar with the fancy job title, it’s how you’d describe those who create and share content online to “influence” their audience of followers. So yes, like a marketer, but a bit more personal, and entertaining.

Of course, a typical influencer’s account can show off cute photos and an aesthetically designed profile, and for some the account will include paid partnerships with brands to advertise products, either showcased from their homes or at exclusive brand events.

You didn’t really see this type of job when social media was first introduced. But as platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube have grown over the years, so have the number of content creators, influencers, vloggers and streamers who are dominating the digital space as “internet personalities” — and for many of them, it’s really paying off.

Take North Carolina’s Jimmy Donaldson — famously known as MrBeast — for example. The YouTuber, named the top creator in the U.S., has more than 300 million followers and makes $82 million, according to Forbes.

Though not all influencers are raking in millions, you can find many small and bigger creators in North Carolina, particularly in Charlotte.

Charlotte’s booming influencer industry

“In general I think it’s booming … I think they’re some of the best entrepreneurs in this city,” Ted Williams, entrepreneur in residence at Queens University of Charlotte, told CharlotteFive recently. “Influencers and creators in general are helping to shape culture, taste, business, everything.”

From up-and-coming creators to major influencers with millions of followers who moved to Charlotte, there are dozens of online users documenting their lives and different parts of the city.

“I think there’s never been a better time to be a creative professional here because Charlotte is booming and it’s a traditionally very finance, real estate-focused city, and so it does feel like the creative class is getting better and better here,” Williams said. “There’s more opportunity here than other cities of its size, I think.”

And Williams should know — he created both CharlotteFive and Charlotte Agenda, both online news publications that focus on influencer-friendly topics like food and drink, entertainment and things to do. Charlotte Agenda is now Axios Charlotte.

Day in the life of an influencer

Bernhardt, a local fashion influencer who also runs her own social media management company, said she’s seen a lot of change among the creator space just in the last few years.

The 25-year-old Mooresville native started her social media career back in high school as a blogger. After graduating from college, she was eager to start growing her TikTok and Instagram once she moved to Charlotte. But it wasn’t what she expected.

“There wasn’t as many creators, just generally, in the Charlotte area,” she said. “When I moved to New York, it was like ‘creator central.’ There were events every single night that I could go to.”

After growing a following while living in New York, it wasn’t long before she found her way back to Charlotte — which she says is much different now, with more creators and special events just for influencers.

“When I came back to Charlotte … it grew so much from the first time I was here to the second time,” Bernhardt explained. “I would say there’s an event like once a month between some sort of brand or business in the Charlotte area, which is definitely really cool to start seeing in Charlotte.”

Surprisingly, Bernhardt said she’s even seeing more success here than she had in New York.

“At the end of the day, it’s like the same type of thing. Like, if you’re authentic and you’re producing quality content, I really don’t think it matters where you are because I’m making more money now living in Charlotte than I did in New York,” she said.

They’ve found fame on social media by focusing on Charlotte. What are their secrets?

Breaking into the influencer industry

Unlike most careers, the beauty of becoming an influencer is that you don’t need to send in a job application and that really anybody can start posting their own content on social media to gain a following.

But it can take some work to get deals with bigger brands.

“It’s a mix of brands finding us and us pitching ourselves to brands,” Bernhardt explained. “If they see you’re a good fit for their product, they will give you a budget of how much they’re willing to pay you.”

So despite what you may see online, there is a lot that most influencers do behind the scenes. This includes batch shooting content, scheduling out photos and collaborating with brands to set up and plan out paid posts.

“That is a huge, huge part of being a content creator — it’s just like, honestly, emails and going back and forth with different brands trying to figure out concepts, finding out the campaign briefs. They’ll send you a brief like, ‘This is what we’re looking for. These are the required hashtags.’ We obviously have to be regulated with the FTC guidelines. All of those things are really important,” she said.

“So I would say most days I am not hair and makeup ready at all. I am either planning out content … researching different trends and also planning out my feed.”

A career as content creator isn’t a one-size-fits-all type of job. For Bernhardt, it’s a part-time gig, but with flexibility being one of the biggest perks of the job, some people have taken on influencing full time.

“No two influencers are the same,” Mackenzie King, founder and CEO of King Social Management, a Charlotte-based management agency for social media influencers and content creators, told CharlotteFive.

“They’re all different, and so it really can look like whatever you really want it to be … so it’s a cool industry because you can really make it, you know, align with your lifestyle because the whole point is that people are following you for the authenticity piece of, like, you sharing things in your life.”

Financially, King says there are a lot of factors that go into how much money is made, whether it be earnings from affiliate commission off of platforms such as LIKEtoKNOW.it, paid partnerships or brand deals.

“I would say for someone with a mid-tier capacity … like 400,000 followers on Instagram, I’m able to charge anywhere between $6,000-$8,000 per post for her. That’s on a flat fee basis,” King explained.

“The other part of this is that it’s definitely not like a traditional career because there’s a little bit of risk in it because you don’t know how many contracts you’re gonna get a month … It’s not like you’re on a salary. You can obviously count on your commissions … but you can’t guarantee that your audience is going to buy something.”

As the influencer industry continues to grow, more businesses are turning to content creators over traditional marketing strategies.

“There is a lot of money in this industry. I mean, some of these big brands — Walmart, Target — they have dedicated teams to influencers, and they have dedicated budgets to social media influencers now, too. Ten years ago, that was not a thing,” King said.

“These influencers make, you know, three-fold what doctors make sometimes, which is crazy if you think about it. But it’s just the way our society is now.”

The trend of utilizing influencers for marketing isn’t just common among big corporations, but new businesses too, especially on the local level.

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Bringing in more business for NC

In a recent research report Williams published with the UNC Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media, he found that state ad buyers allocated 8% of their advertising budget to influencers last year.

This year, even more are planning to spend more on social media creators.

“Ad buyers undoubtedly believe in local influencer marketing, but it’s hard for them to execute. They struggle with vetting influencers, quality control, measuring success, and negotiating deals. Many also mentioned wrestling with paid influencer marketing losing its ‘authenticity,’” the report states.

Despite the difficulties some ad buyers faced last year, 43% are planning to put even more money toward using local influencers, Williams and other researchers found.

“I believe that people trust people, and so to get endorsements or exciting or great coverage from influencers drives a lot of business. And so that’s why, and again this is a national trend, you see more money flowing into those spaces,” he explained.

“In general, it works. It’s not to say the other more traditional paid media doesn’t work. It’s just that this is a channel that’s booming and works, and then, you know, it’s where young people are. So it’s very hard to reach the young consumer with more traditional means, but everyone is living on Instagram, TikTok.”

She wants to make Gen Z more media literate via TikTok. Maybe it will save newspapers?

As technology continues to evolve and social media gains more popularity, Williams believes local influencers will have an even larger impact on Charlotte.

“I think influencers will only become more important because the consumers are going there more and more, and the advertising dollars are flowing there also,” Williams said. “So I think we will continue to see a boom in both the quality of the influencer businesses and influencers.”

With the influencer industry growing across the globe, King agrees that it’s likely the city will become home to even more influencers, too.

“I don’t necessarily think influencers are being drawn to Charlotte; I think that influencers are being self-created here because it is a new, growing city and the creative opportunities are endless,” she told CharlotteFive. “They are able to find their niche and community to grow within, versus larger cities where the influencer space is far more saturated.”