Influencer
Fashion & Fitness Influencer Melissa Le’s Tips for Balancing Content Creation with Your Life and Overcoming Self-Doubt
Lifestyle influencer Melissa Le overcame shyness and self-doubt on her journey to becoming a successful content creator. She shares her strategies for managing time as a creator, her creative process, and how she stays inspired. Keep reading to learn her top tips.
About Melissa Le
Melissa Le is a 19-year-old Australian content creator sharing fashion and lifestyle content. She started creating lip-syncing videos and was approached by an Australian gym-wear brand, launching her content creation career.
One of her initial challenges as a creator was her shyness and lack of confidence. Her journey as a content creator helped her grow in confidence and self-love to the point where she is now confident going on camera without makeup. Melissa shares that this increase in confidence has spread to all aspects of her content and personal life.
Melissa Le’s Creative Process
Melissa shares, “You get inspiration from watching other people’s talks and then with my videos, I feel like it’s very inspired by my own lifestyle, so I post what I actually do. The work that I put out is very genuine to what my lifestyle is like. I don’t really sit down and brainstorm videos. It just comes with the flow of things.”
When recording videos, Melissa typically blocks out days in the week to film content. Currently, most of her content is focused on fashion and fitness.
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Melissa Le explains, “I feel like there is a lot of pressure when it comes to posting fitness videos. Personally, it’s like a fear of being judged on what you’re doing, so I am trying to do more of that, but that’s what I’ll be doing the next year, I guess. Posting more fitness videos, trying to get more partnerships with a lot of supplement brands, fitness brands.”
Managing Time as a Creator
Melissa Le’s biggest challenge is balancing her time between university, work, and content creation. Creating content is a huge time investment, which can be challenging to manage with her busy lifestyle.
Melissa shares, “Sometimes you just go through mental stages where you don’t feel like yourself, or you don’t feel like creating content, and you kind of have to stick through it because you have to make deadlines. The viewers are understanding, but in situations, it feels like you kind of let yourself and them down.”
Melissa’s biggest strategy for managing content creation on top of school and work is choosing one or two days a week to create content. If her work is already packed, she’ll split the time into two or three hours chunks and spread them throughout the week. However, at times she does make sacrifices, such as sacrificing sleep to create content or finish school work.
Reading comments is another challenge she faces as a creator.
She explains, “Personally, I can’t read comments. That’s a big thing for me that I’m trying to get over. It’s a lot of fear. I feel like there’s a lot of pressure in what you’re creating, and I feel like you always feel the pressure to get a certain amount of views, but you can’t dictate that. You never know what’s going to go viral.”
As a general rule, Melissa tries to get each of her video posts to over 10,000 views. While this doesn’t happen every time, it’s a metric that she measures success by. She also looks at engagement and demographics, such as how many men versus women are seeing her posts.
Brand Partnerships
Melissa Le has been approached by brands worldwide, including Revolve, Oh Polly, Lounge Underwear, Whitefox Boutique, and Charcoal Clothing.
One of her biggest collaborations has been with the clothing brand ECHT. Melissa has collaborated with this brand for over a year and has had multiple videos go viral.
She shares, “They asked to use my videos for ads, which is crazy. That stuff pops up everywhere. I don’t really have a contract or anything. It’s kind of a go with the flow situation. They just email me when they want to send me new clothes. I don’t really get to pick, but they send whatever.”
However, Melissa notes that ECHT recently launched a new influencer platform where influencers can pick specific products.
She adds that managing all the brand partnerships can be overwhelming. However, it has now become a part of her morning routine. She usually goes through opportunities and emails when she is eating breakfast.
Currently, Melissa monetizes her platform through TikTok’s Creator Fund. Most of her brand partnerships at this time are gifting partnerships. However, she hopes to do more paid partnerships this year, especially as she grows her Instagram.
Staying Inspired & Melissa’s Tips for Content Creators
Many creators experience burnout from the endless amount of work and mental energy that goes into content creation. Melissa Le stays inspired by reminding herself of how far she has come.
“I feel like as you continue to grow, you see the numbers jump up, and then you see that more people are interested in the way your lifestyle is, your fashion is, the way your style is, I think it’s a personal goal as well. You got to stay inspired for yourself.”
Another aspect of content creation that inspires Melissa is the lack of Asian influencers in Australia. For her, it’s important to touch others by reaching a wider audience, especially younger people.
Her biggest tip for other content creators is to not let the pressure get to you.
She shares, “Do whatever you do. Be true to yourself because, as cliche as it sounds, I feel like if you’re not yourself and you feel like you need to put up an act – it’s not realistic content and it’s not a good way to build your profile as an influencer.”
Melissa Le stresses that honesty will get the most views. Faking a specific lifestyle or personality won’t lead to an authentic connection with your audience. She also recommends finding a balance that works for you and your mental health. While meeting deadlines is important, it’s not everything, especially if you crash and burn in the process.
Future Plans
In the future, Melissa plans on starting a YouTube channel and creating video content on there in addition to her TikTok videos.
In addition, her experience as a content creator helped her realize that nursing wasn’t for her. Instead, she is planning to start studying for a Bachelor of Business Marketing and Digital Media.
