College students often work at places like the library or a coffee shop during the academic year, but one TCU student used her passion for fashion to build a sizable Instagram following that is starting to lead to revenue.

Avery Foster of Grapevine, Texas, was a junior in high school when she launched @averyfosterstyle, an Instagram blog dedicated to affordable fashion. Now, the sophomore communication studies major has partnerships with Target Actually and Fabletics to promote their brands on her blog. 

Foster said the boost in social media traffic from COVID-19 restrictions helped make her blog attractive to the fashion brands. 

“My blog has nearly tripled in followers since the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Foster.

Foster is one of a growing number of entrepreneurs who use their social media platforms to earn money as they recommend different brands. 

There were 132. 2 million Instagram users in the United States in June 2020, accounting for 39.5% of the entire U.S. population, according to a survey conducted by NapoleonCat, a worldwide social media management tool.

Hubbart has gained a following of over 27,600 followers on her blog, @stello_style.

“Working for Riane really helped me when I was first starting my blog,” said Foster. “I was able to turn the experience I gained from watching Riane manage her blog into strategies for starting my own.”

Foster said she gained a lot of the skills she uses for her own blog from other bloggers.

“The blogger community is so kind and helpful,” said Foster. “I often message people asking how they were able to do certain things on their profile, and they are so quick to answer any questions that I have.”

When Foster collaborates with a brand, she is responsible for promoting their products on her blog.

This usually means that she tries the products out for herself and posts pictures to show her followers why they should buy whatever she is promoting, she said.

“Whenever someone buys something from the links I provide on my Instagram or on my LikeToKnowIt profile, I make a commission off of whatever they buy,” said Foster.

She said bigger companies compensate her with a set fee per post and then give her clothes or products in addition.

Alex Baigalmaa is the head of e-commerce marketing for Vervet Denim, another brand that collaborates with Foster.

“After reviewing Avery’s Instagram, we noticed her grace and youthfulness, which our company stands for,” said Baigalmaa.

He said working with influencers like Foster is something that provides the brand with a genuine message for people who follow their blogs.

Since the start of the pandemic, many influencers have noticed their likes, comments and followers steadily rising.

Instagram bloggers trying to gain a following, such as Foster, were able to establish a larger audience because of the pandemic.

“I wasn’t really sure why I was gaining so many followers all at once, but I figured it was because people were stuck at home with nothing better to do,” said Foster.

With a larger amount of people engaging on social media on a more frequent basis and in a more active manner than ever before, smaller Instagram accounts were able to create a bigger footprint on the app.

Daily time among adult Instagram users jumped 13.8% in 2020 to nearly 30 minutes per day, according to research conducted by eMarketer, a market research company that provides insights and trends related to digital marketing, media and commerce.

That’s an increase of four minutes compared to 2019.

“Instagram has seen increased engagement recently through features such as Instagram Live and Stories,” said eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson. “Creators, celebrities and publishers have all used Instagram to demonstrate how they are dealing with stay-at-home orders.”

The company previously estimated daily time among users to increase by just 24 seconds in 2020.

“I think my specific success had something to do with the fact that a lot of people were sick of sitting at home in their pajamas,” said Foster. “I used this to my advantage by keeping that sense of ‘normal’ in the lives of my followers when I would get dressed up and share the outfits I put together on a daily basis.”

Foster is not the only person who experienced changes on Instagram during the pandemic.

Taylor Lorenz is a New York Times technology reporter who reports on internet culture.

In an interview with another Times reporter, Lorenz said people are spending much more time online and everything is being shared more and faster than normal.

That’s an opportunity, and many influencers are using this time to get more followers and hope the money follows, she added.

“Companies’ marketing deals with influencers are projected to be far larger than advertising sales for the entire newspaper industry in the United States,” said Lorenz.

Often, people try to become influencers with this same hope of making it big in this still-growing industry and turning it into a full-time job.