This is part three of an ongoing series where we will come to know more about the men of influencer marketing.
Social media influencers can have followers anywhere on the globe. Many of Jorge Guevara’s followers are from South America. Jorge was kind enough to grant us an interview as we continue to learn from the men of influencer marketing.
We want to better understand these men who are social media influencers. What inspires them? What are their keys to success? What do they wish they knew when they started?
On Friday, October 19, I spoke with Jorge Guevara to learn more about how he has cultivated his audience to become a star within the world of influencer marketing. What follows is my conversation with Jorge:
Hi Jorge. I’ve seen your website and your Instagram but what more can you tell me about yourself? What does it mean to you to be a social media influencer?
“The way I got started was in fitness modeling. Fitness modeling is very saturated now and I felt like I could do so much more than working out and buying meal plans. I actually had a good opportunity in Los Angeles to shoot with a big time fashion photographer and he pretty much opened my eyes and my mind that I could do so much more than just fitness. After that photo shoot, that’s when I figured out that’s what I really wanted to focus on. I started switching my entire image on social media toward high fashion. I worked with different photographers in Chicago, LA and Miami.
It was really tough in the beginning because the audience I had built over the last few years was very fitness-oriented and when I started posting a lot of fashion photos, I began losing a lot of engagement. It took me some time to gain it back and reach a new audience but that’s what the transformation looked like.
To be an influencer you have to find your niche and where you want to motivate people. For me it’s just being motivated in all aspects of your life from fitness, the way you dress, what you eat, taking care of your family and travelling. As an influencer I love to not only show off the brands that I work with and the content I create but also for people who may not have the opportunity to travel, I like to share my photos and videos to share my experiences.”
It’s not often you hear of influencers switching lanes like you did from fitness to fashion. What did that transition to influencer marketing look and feel like for you?
“The whole process of going from fitness to fashion lifestyle blogger was very tough. In the beginning people were not used to it so I did lose a lot of followers and engagement. For me it was something I needed to do for myself. To go to high-end fashion brands was hard because my audience was more fitness-oriented. I want to say it took about a year through different brand collaborations and tagging pages on Instagram and although it’s taken time, I’m growing as an influencer. I’m a micro-influencer so I still have a long way to go to catch up. Some people have been doing this for more than ten years.”
Being an influencer is a concept that’s relatively new. How do you define being an influencer to friends and family who may not have been exposed to influencer marketing yet?
“As an influencer, you’re promoting a product or service that you believe in and you want your followers to follow up on. I only promote products or services that I’ve used and truly believe in. I don’t collaborate just to get paid. I do it because I believe in the brand or it’s something I’m going to wear. The easiest way to explain it is it’s something you believe in and you think it would benefit them too.”
What do you know about your audience who follow you?
“I have a big South American audience because I’m from Columbia. Even though I reside in the U.S. now, I’ve always had a big Latin audience follow me because they can relate to me. I do a lot of videos in Spanish. Anywhere from 24-45 year olds make up my audience. Today that’s about 55% male and 45% female. As you start working with other brands you begin to gain more followers who like your content and that brand.”
As you’ve built your social media following, was there one thing you can point to that came ‘easy’ to you?
“Nothing’s easy. For me, I’ve been lucky to be photogenic so creating content has been fairly easy. Staying consistent with content has been one of the hardest things because you have to post almost every single day. Nothing has been easy because I’m continuing the growth phase in this saturated market where you have to do things that people are not doing. It’s important to me to focus on more aspects of life than just fashion, like travel too. I’ll always have fitness to incorporate in because that’s a huge part of my life that I want to promote, just not as much as I used to before.”
Is there a community of fitness or lifestyle influencers that you’re collaborating with on a regular basis?
“I’ve seen more collaboration with male influencers since it isn’t as big yet as the community of female influencers. For guys, we do a lot of collaboration on events or brands that may be looking for another guy. I’m always looking to help other people out because I know they would look out for me if they had the opportunity. At the end of the day it’s all about helping each other out and creating something different.”
Is there a brand that you aspire to work with?
“That’s easy, it’s Tom Ford. As I’ve grown as an influencer I’ve made so much progress with the brands I’ve worked with. I started with the small mom and pops and on to the smaller and medium brands. It’s getting to the point where the quality of content you’re putting out there and the brands you start tagging begin to notice you and inquire about you. I did a campaign with Lucky last year that was huge for me. It put me on the map for brands who are on the same level as them. It really helped me push my name and image to another level.”