My relationship status with social media

It's complicated

I’ve been creating content online for 11 years. I always say I got so lucky that my hobby turned into a desired and lucrative career, which is true. But it’s also required a lot of dedication and grit. When I started in 2013, putting yourself out there online was unusual. I nearly died of embarrassment when a classmate found and posted one of my videos to my Facebook wall during my sophomore year of high school.

After the inevitable snickers from my classmates and second-guessing myself, I decided to keep my YouTube page and continue posting. I figured if people were going to talk shit, at least the chatter was something I had control over. It’s cliché, but the story of “first they make fun of you, and then they want to be you” was true: the biggest critics of my channel back then are now the people with second Instagrams pursuing content creation today. It’s an impulse I can understand— the ability to express your creativity online was what ultimately spurred my career.

If I could bring one thing back to 2013, it would be a pair of shears.

The turning point from hobby to career came when I went to college. I religiously posted weekly vlogs, somehow finding time between classes, schoolwork, projects, parties, and hangovers to engage my new and quickly growing audience. I started making “real money” in 2018, my sophomore year, and decided to sign to a management company after an 84-thread email chain with VS Pink.

My career on social media felt like I was in my own secret garden on a sprawling field. I was aware that others had their own gardens, which seemed to exist far, far away. But here I was safeguarded amongst lilacs and lillies. In the early days of YouTube, there was very little competition, and the industry was largely gatekept. There was an air of mystery around the business of content creation, and I wasn’t going to be the one to open the floodgates. I liked the world and the work I had created for myself. I was one of the only people on campus “doing” social media, let alone making money from it, which even drew the attention of multiple professors–something my teachers’ pet self loved. It made sense that at Syracuse’s school for media, there would be an interest in its newest form. Influencing was a burgeoning sector, but that was still something I was blissfully in denial of. I never imagined having to share my plot of land. Alas, 2020’s TikTok surge came along, and I was proven wrong.

I don’t need to get into the rise of influencers here; you already know how the story goes. Something I will add, though, is how it left us “OG YouTubers” (if I may include myself in that) wildly frustrated and uninspired. After many conversations with my fellow twenty-ten creators, it became clear that our small YouTube cohort resisted short-form media. How dare they bring what we mastered to the butcher block? How blasphemous that creators were reaching the heights overnight that took us years to build?

I became brazen and aloof online. I refused to change my content to fit the mold short-form media required (My journaling series on TikTok, which gained traction and eventually turned into my business, No Particular Order, was actually intended to get people off of TikTok… but that’s a story for a different day.)

My resistance resulted in slow growth and frustration. I’m fortunate to have an audience that has stuck with me all these years, but as the industry has changed drastically, I’ve dug my heels and convinced myself that my lack of success with short form is due to simply being skilled in a different art form.

But like all the best fairytales, this one has a happy end middle.

This past October, I went to Los Cabos with Expedia. The group in attendance was comprised of 15 Expedia employees and 28 creators from around the world. The intention of the trip was to prepare their new ambassador class, of which I am a part, for our upcoming long-term partnership.

I’d never been on a proper business trip where 60% of each day was spent in conference rooms, but I expected it to feel a bit stuffy and require lots of cafeteria coffee... Boy, was I wrong.

The presentations highlighted different aspects of Expedia Group, which is made up of Expedia, Vrbo, and Hotels.com. We learned about Travel Shops, their OneKey rewards program and shown high-performing travel content. My favorite lesson featured their just-unveiled campaign: Unpack ‘25, a collection of travel trends emerging from massive research studies across the family of brands. I just posted my first piece of content in our partnership to highlight their unpack Unpack campaign, which now has 2m+ impressions across Instagram and TikTok, largely thanks to my learnings from the trip.

The Expedia gang just before the last supper in Los Cabos

Many of the creators I met in the program have built their entire careers in the past 1-2 years, meaning they are green, driven, and seeing real success from their dedication to short-form content. This left me feeling insecure the first night: I chatted with a few of my new friends about our imposter syndrome and our inability to imagine our own success. By the last night, the doubt washed away. I stayed up feverously scribbling in my journal about different content ideas, tracking my previous performance by content vertical, and writing my goals for this partnership. Something had reignited me.

That something might have been someone: a creator I had the pleasure of sitting next to during our final dinner. Andrew started his career on social media just over one year ago and now has 270k followers with killer engagement. We talked at length about social media growth. Andrew’s unique perspective from his background in tech allows him to look at content performance from a purely analytical standpoint, which he noted has pros and cons. One of its biggest pros is that it does remove some of the emotional “offense” from content creation. When sharing your life online, it’s hard not to internalize content performance as a measure of oneself.

Here are my metrics from a recent Reel I’m particularly proud of using Andrew’s framework.

We discussed the importance of having a “reason to follow”. His RTF is “follow me to learn styling tips for men”. (I’m still struggling to define mine. Right now it’s just —vibes.) We talked about how Instagram is generally more forgiving when reposting videos from TikTok rather than the other way around. He pointed out key data points he prioritizes when he posts, namely watch time ratios and percentage of followers vs. non-followers. I’d share more, but it is his knowledge to divulge. I’m extremely grateful to Andrew for sharing what he has learned with me and to Expedia for welcoming me into such a talented, interesting, and kind cohort of creators.

That conversation and others like it over my three days in Mexico was a wake-up call to be less emotional with my content. Since the trip, I’ve been practicing treating my job like a job rather than a baby I’ve been nurturing and protecting for over a decade. I wonder if that’s kinda how moms feel when their kids hit tweendom? It’s time to let your beloved fly!

I returned reinvigorated and with a new appreciation for the industry. It is changing, and it is allowing me to change with it. How great is that?!

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Here’s a little case study for you:

Recently, a favorite brand of mine, J. Crew, approached me to do a two-month partnership. I took this opportunity to flex my new, data-backed understanding of my work. From one particular hotel room deep dive into my own archive, I realized the content I creative-direct and professionally shot always performs better. Duh, but I had no idea.

J. Crew’s strong branding (which I don’t need to tell you about if you’ve ever spent two minutes on Substack) made my preparation quite easy; I knew the world I was stepping into. I called up a photographer friend, Ursula, and got to work on my two favorite tabs: Pinterest and Canva. We would shoot two campaigns: one in November, all about the You’ve Got Mail/ When Harry Met Sally love for Central Park in the fall. The other, for December, would center around the Eloise at Christmastime/ Upper East Side shopaholic’s manic dream, balancing fifty wrapped presents across Park Avenue.

margot.lee

A post shared by @margot.lee

margot.lee

A post shared by @margot.lee

The performance of the two posts is a testament to paying attention to data and working really fucking hard, the former which was newer to me, the latter I’ve been evoking my entire career. I still have a ways to go and a lot to relearn, but I have a renewed sense of excitement for this chapter of the career I’ve been so blessed to have.

Thank you for being here; you’ve made this all possible.

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For more of my ramblings on social media, check out these podcast episodes:

• Do as Ben & Jerry Do (on myth-busting the “personal brand”)

• Complaining to my Boss (I honestly haven’t listened to this one since I posted it, so who’s to tell what this is about… I just know I am the “boss” in this situation. So there’s that).

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