Pamela Kieck has found a new way to rake in serious cash. She used to work in management, but this novel method of getting money gave her enough freedom to quit. This woman from South Milwaukee’s new thing is being an Instagram influencer.

An influencer is a social media personality that “influences” their followers into purchasing goods or services. The providers of said services and goods give free products to the influencer, who then promotes them. Influencers, depending on factors like how many followers they have, can charge upwards of $1,000 per 100,000 followers for a single promotional photograph.

Pamela has around 35 thousand followers, and her main draws are fashion, travel, and food. She has managed to turn these interests into a job that pays enough for her to quit her full-time gig and devote herself to Instagram. A lot of that money comes from savings she made on clothes and makeup. Since she has these products sent to her regularly, she hasn’t had to buy clothes or cosmetics in quite a while.

Kieck claims that being an influencer isn’t nearly as glamorous as it seems. She says that it requires a lot of time to conduct properly. For one, she has to post many photos a day regularly. Moreover, these pictures need to be promotional, but also provide meaningful content to her audience. 

Additionally, she faces cutthroat competition from the thousands of other influencers in the same niches as her. Not to mention the fact that she has to network with this competition and constantly come up with fresh ways to attract new followers.