My kids still can’t believe they got paid to see a movie. They were seven, five and one at the time, and in exchange for me posting a photo of them on Instagram watching the movie Trolls, Sky paid us £3,000. We also received a free Sky box.
The children were also impressed with the family holiday to a stylish beach house in Cornwall, complete with hot tub, home cinema, surfing lessons and even a private chef. The house was so big that I took my parents. All free in exchange for a few photos and videos on my Instagram feed.
Becoming a parent influencer a decade ago, in the early days of the social media boom (before ‘influence’ even had a name) was exciting and lucrative.
What started as an online blog for mothers spinning endless plates (part of the self-care trend that sought to correct the view of motherhood as a monotonous, self-sacrificial task) quickly became a one-woman clothing business that sold blouses adorned with fun logos.
Then, after a lot of hard work and as my social media following grew, I saw that I could make more money by influencing other moms under the moniker SelfishMother.
I would have to be diligent and make sure the family was on board, but the rewards were high.
Over the years, by taking photos of my family and posting them on my Instagram account, I have earned over £25,000 from paid social media posts.
But the time has come to stop. I love being an influencer, but a lot has changed since I started posting about life and motherhood. And my family has changed too. My kids are growing up and I no longer feel comfortable talking about parenting in such detail.
Molly Gunn is no longer comfortable talking about parenting in such detail
For taking photographs of his family and posting them on Instagram, he earned more than £25,000 from paid social media posts.
Molly believes snaps like these may have been private moments that should have been kept within the family.
So much so that I’ve decided to give away my @SelfishMother feed, along with the 53,000 loyal followers I’ve accumulated over the years.
Yes, you read that right. I am raffling off my account for charity, so a new owner can manage it under a new name. My influencer days are over. I will change the feed title to whatever the winner wants and give them the number of followers.
The truth is that now my children are a little older (my two sons Rafferty, 13, and Fox, 11, and my daughter Liberty, seven), the idea of featuring them in periodicals seems wrong to me.
Online safety is increasingly important, and as my oldest son enters his teenage years, I am aware of privacy issues. There are so many strange people out there that I don’t want too much information about my children in the public domain.
Last year I reviewed my personal Instagram account (I have another account @MollyJane
Gunn) and deleted thousands of photos of my kids when they were younger (after ordering a physical photo album of Instagram photos).
As they grow up, they also have their opinions. My kids never objected to me posting about them when they were younger, but in recent years they have become more reluctant to be photographed. Kids, especially, don’t want to be embarrassed in front of their friends at school if I tell them every detail.
And yes, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that, in the past, the line between intimate family moments and “marketable content” has blurred. I hate posting pictures of my kids in bed when they were little and me breastfeeding. I also don’t think I should have posted a photo showing one of them throwing a tantrum.
Maybe, I think now, they were private moments that should have been kept within the family.
Earlier this year, I flirted with the idea of being a travel influencer. Outside of the @SelfishMother community, it’s the project I’m best known for. For three months, I took my children out of school (they were then in eighth, sixth and second grade) and took them on a unique trip to Asia, documenting on Instagram our days in Bali, the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, Thailand and Sri Lanka. I posted videos of beautiful scenery, but I tried to make them fun and that other parents could relate to as well. I had no qualms about showing off my bad Christmas haircut or when it was simply too hot to look shiny and put together.
And thanks to my Insta feed, we were treated to a few nights’ stay at Bali’s incredible Jungle Resort Nirjhara Hotel, where we were given our own two-bedroom villa with a private pool.
There was a little reaction to this. I received a few messages from teachers who disagreed with me taking my children out of school, and when I wrote about it for newspapers, the comments were often irritating, accusing me of “arrogance” for “not thinking the rules apply.” ” us. or do it just because you wanted a luxury vacation.
I also received hundreds of messages from parents congratulating me on giving their children an extraordinary experience and wondering how they could achieve it themselves. But since that trip, I haven’t posted about my life on my Instagram account @SelfishMother. I’ve struggled to post while still being “authentic,” in modern social media parlance. Posting “authentically” means posting honestly and not looking like something you’re not.
I haven’t been to any other fancy holidays and have slowed down my social media posting. It’s not like the ‘good old days’ when I was new to the social media platform and you could only post photos, not videos.
There were fewer brands trying to get involved and they tended to be smaller businesses, rather than big brands with lots of money.
It was Leah, the daughter of rock star Ronnie Wood, who, in 2014, told me to start posting on Instagram, after I had bought one of my first Selfish Mother t-shirts.
Many celebrities followed suit, including model Claudia Schiffer, presenter Fearne Cotton and Jamie Oliver. The boost they gave to the label helped raise over £1 million for charities including Save The Children, Stand Up To Cancer, Choose Love and Mothers2Mothers.
As my followers grew, brands started sending me all kinds of things to promote to my followers: jewelry, food delivery boxes, art for the kids’ rooms. Bottles of wine and craft gin – so much alcohol! Maybe my feed gave the impression that I needed it. They even sent us two beautiful V&A sofas.
When my youngest daughter was born, I was inundated with baby products. I didn’t have to buy a babygro for six months, they sent me so many, plus bath products, bedding and a beautiful dream catcher. Later, toys and books arrived.
But other parts of becoming an influencer were much less fun. There will always be people online who seem to enjoy tearing you down.
When I asked a woman about copying one of my clothing lines, she even went so far as to find my house on the real estate site Zoopla and post my address publicly.
In a post about getting some free beauty products, one woman responded: “You talk shit and your lipstick is too bright.” Which was to the point, I guess.
You get used to these comments. Many people are jealous of what they see or want in your life but they don’t make an effort. And yet, a decade later, I look at the influence business and wonder if we have reached saturation point.
Social media followers are the currency of our time, but nowadays you don’t even need a large number to call yourself an influencer. “Micro-influence” is the buzzword right now, and a “micro-influencer” on Instagram can have as few as 1,000 followers. As a sideline, everyone is in it.
Meanwhile, on the social media platform TikTok, everyone is an influencer. It doesn’t matter what followers you have, as long as you can persuade someone to buy something; By posting a link in your video on TikTok Shop, anyone can earn a percentage of sales.
Influencing in this way is usually autonomous, meaning no relationship with the brand is necessary. When I did it, sometimes there was a formal signing agreement on the dotted line (a post in exchange for money), or there might have been an unspoken agreement where a brand would send me a “gift” in the hope that I would post. about it as a thank you.
Not all of my influence has been deliberate: one follower told me she’s bought every single cardigan I’ve ever worn on Instagram, although I haven’t specifically promoted them at all.
In the old days, Instagram looked more like a photo diary than a marketing strategy, and it was better for it.
It’s been fun and it’s been hard work. But now I’m toasting a new chapter. Yes, I will still be on Instagram as @mollyjanegunn, writing blog posts and sharing articles, but I will no longer be trying to influence you. That world has changed too much and mine too.