Likes, followers, and creativity are three things needed to become a social media influencer in 2024. Your identity is your brand, and documenting your life by posting on popular platforms is the way most think it should be to become famous.
But one Cal State Fullerton student didn't see it that way. She simply saw social media as an opportunity to express herself creatively and took a chance.
To the surprise and amazement of her friends, Grace Tran, a 20-year-old sophomore communications and advertising student from Seattle, accidentally exploded on social media, amassing more than 10 million likes on TikTok in doing fashion-focused activities. videos as a hobby.
A friend Tran met at CSUF around this time was second-year business student Darren de Ocampo, who was surprised by the number of views Tran got from one of his first videos on the popular video platform. social media.
I remember she posted her first video, and it got like four million views, and then personally I was like, damn, like she's really having a blast, de Ocampo said. For every video she made, I checked her Instagram and was like, how many followers does she have now?
The first trans viral video centered around a joke about having to do her homework now that she had finished decorating her freshman dorm on campus. Tran said she didn't expect it to get views and just did it for fun.
After posting the initial video, Tran began creating more TikTok content centered around her campus life and her outfit-of-the-day videos. She said she started posting her videos not to become famous, but to document her college wardrobe every week.
Although she creates fashion-focused content for fun herself, Tran is also a part-time clothing designer and social media specialist for independent fashion brand Steady Hands.
She initially contacted the company to see if she had any internships available herself as a fan of the brand. She was hired as a marketing and social media intern right after finishing her freshman year of high school. She became a clothing design intern at the end of her senior year before being promoted to an official position during her first year at CSUF.
According to her friend Inaya Rizvi, while Tran was a fashionista in high school before starting her career with the fashion brand, she believes her professional experience gave her the confidence to take her fashion content more seriously.
Steady Hands has really given her a lot more confidence in what she can actually do and accomplish, Rizvi said. She was in fashion before that, of course, but then I think trying to design for Steady Hands or just getting all this positive exposure out of it, I think that really pushed her to step up her game.
According to her other friend Aleyna Barry, Tran doesn't realize how talented she is and the impact she has on social media and the friends around her.
We've always been very impressed with her, and she doesn't even understand, Barry said. She doesn't understand how cool she is.
Since debuting as a content creator last year, Tran has gained over 40,000 followers on TikTok and Instagram respectively. Thanks to her followers, she has had the chance to work with brands like Nike and Bose through sponsorship posts on her platform pages.
Despite her following and these opportunities, Tran remains humble and is simply grateful to be in the position she is in.
I never really had any intention of expanding my audience or anything,” Tran said. I'm really grateful for the opportunities I've had and for the people who comment on my videos. It's very rewarding to have fun with it and to be able to share videos of your outfits or other things or to make little jokes and have people return the favor.
Although she is a fashion-focused social media influencer, Tran would love to one day work as part of her specialty for an entertainment production company. She said she enjoyed fashion as a creative outlet and hobby outside of her school work at university.
She pursues fashion outside of her social media channels through CSUF's Fullerton Fashion Association, an on-campus club designed for fashion enthusiasts looking to promote their individuality on campus.
While Tran may not have intentionally become a social media influencer, she encourages others to take a chance and try new things to see what happens.
Take time to develop the confidence to be able to try new things and pursue new opportunities, Tran said. I'm just a student, I'm just a person, and I kind of got to where I am because I kind of decided to try something new.
