Would You Pay Someone To Teach You To Be An Influencer?

The influencer economy claims to offer an escape from a 9 to 5. Valeria Lipovetsky, who brings in millions of dollars online, promises to school aspiring influencers – for a price.

In August, the energy inside the event space of a hotel in the Coconut Grove neighbourhood of Miami, was first-day-of-school jitters meets sorority initiation ceremony. The room was bustling with about 50 women, mostly in their 30s, dressed in similar colours (neutrals with a pop of red) and similar silhouettes (trousers, maxi skirts and vested tops), per the styling mood board they received the previous week.

Over the course of five hours, they listened to a panel, participated in a Q&A session and broke out into small groups – as one might at a business conference.

This gathering, however, also included a “content creation” hour, during which attendees were encouraged to collaborate on videos and photos. Ring lights glared around the room as everyone claimed their space. They were learning how to be influencers.

This was the first class of students at Creator Method, an online content creation academy founded by Valeria Lipovetsky, 34, and her husband, Gary, 51. The venture is an offshoot of their company Valeria Inc, which supports Lipovetsky’s career as a fashion and lifestyle influencer. On TikTok and Instagram – where she has 2.3 million and 1.8 million followers – she posts reels of her getting dressed, glimpses into her three sons’ lives and snippets from her podcast, Not Alone, in which she talks to mostly female guests about relationships and wellness. She says her collection of social media brands earns her about $13.5 million over the span of her influencer career.

Lipovetsky, wearing a pea-green dress and with her sons Benjamin, 9, and Maximus, 5, in tow, had pledged to teach this group of young women her methods.

Her school for influencing, which she rolled out in May, has no coursework, no exams and no certification of any kind. The $3000 annual membership fee gives students access to a library of more than 80 (and counting) prerecorded video lessons; weekly Zoom calls with the Lipovetskys and Rachel Ostro, CEO of Valeria Inc; and private group chats.

Lessons include instructions on attracting brand partnerships, lectures on the importance of consistent posting and best iPhone practices. IRL events, such as the one in August, are included in the cost.

There has perhaps never before been more demand for Lipovetsky’s teachings. The creator economy is currently worth $250 billion, and it’s predicted to be worth around $480b by 2027, according to Goldman Sachs Research. As the industry booms, a Morning Consult survey last year found that more than half of Generation Zers aspire to be influencers and see it as a viable career path.

Many people who have found success in social media influencing have done so without any special training or lectures; some have stumbled into it completely by accident. With its high price tag and educational promises, Lipovetsky’s course has some people cautioning scepticism.

“It’s buyer beware,” said Jeff Hancock, founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab at Stanford University and a professor of communication.

It’s one thing, Hancock said, “if you want to have a consulting firm or if somebody were like, ‘Hey, we know how this stuff works.’ But to argue that it’s an educational thing, that’s when I think you can run into trouble.”

Applying to Advance a ‘Creator Journey’

To be admitted to Lipovetsky’s influencer school, students don’t only have to pay; they have to apply.

“I was really, really surprised and grateful to have gotten in that early in my creator journey,” said Murielle Simplice, 28, a registered nurse from Ottawa, Ontario, who creates wellness content. She was accepted with 76 followers.

Ina Melendez, 35, said she thought the academy was “exclusive in a good way,” and told herself, “If they accept me, then that’s a sign.”

While a few students are stay-at-home mothers or wives, others have full-time jobs – sex therapist, air traffic controller, surgeon and dance instructor, among them – and are there to create content that either supports their primary career or as a way to transition into full-time influencing.

The 119 women and one man who make up the student body range in age from 20-something to 50-something. Would-be influencers come from all over the world, including Qatar and New Zealand. The median follower count for the 120 enrolled students was about 6000 as of September; some attendees, including Simplice, had followers only in the double or triple digits, while others came in with as many as 250,000.

Gary Lipovetsky frequently refers to his wife as “the Oprah of her generation,” but to promote Creator Method, he reassures aspirants that they need not be a once-in-a-lifetime personality. In order to succeed as an influencer, he says, “You need to believe you have talent. You don’t actually have to have talent.”

Valeria Lipovetsky started creating content at 26 – posting vlogs on YouTube with a focus on nutrition and recipes. Over the past eight years, she has expanded to fashion and lifestyle, bringing in brand partnerships with big-name brands such as Amazon, H&M, Mercedes-Benz and Chanel.

Alison Cheperdak, 34, an etiquette coach from Washington, DC, said she was posting almost daily before enrolling, but she ramped up once courses began. In the few months since enrolling, she has seen her Instagram followers rise to 303,000 from 185,000. Previously, she was a law clerk on three US Senate committees and an assistant staff secretary in the Trump White House.

“It’s recommended that we post two reels a day to Instagram, at a minimum, and perhaps an additional carousel post,” Cheperdak said.

But a quick search online will generate tons of resources offering this tip free. Lucy Renouf, 27, a former dancer based in Sussex, England, who creates lifestyle content about her home renovation and raising a puppy, has never sought out any professional guidance on influencing. She said she decided to get serious about becoming an influencer in 2022 by committing to daily posts for 100 days – she amassed 100,000 followers in four months, she said, primarily using tips she found by searching online. (Now, she has 470,000 followers on Instagram and an agent.)

And some Creator Method students have found success because of the internet’s whims.

Two months into the academy, Bianca Comanescu had about 300 Instagram followers when one reel – which was captioned “when you reach the ripe old age of 26 and going out two nights in a row feels like the Olympics” – went viral to the tune of 10 million views, which gained her an additional 7000 followers. The reel, however, didn’t attract her target demographic: women interested in fashion. Instead, it skewed her ratio of followers to 80% male, she said.

Others say forming communities with other influencers – with no cost of admission – can be just as effective in helping boost their profiles online.

“I think people would be surprised how generous and kind so many other creators are in helping people build their business,” said Ilana Torbiner, a fashion influencer in Chicago who is not part of Lipovetsky’s content creation course.

Becoming the Tony Robbins of Influencing

Creator Method is still in its infancy, but its goal is to enrol 100,000 people – only 4% of Lipovetsky’s following – which would amount to a cash flow of $300m, if the programme stays at the current fee. (Ostro said, “If anything, I want to increase the price.”)

Ostro and Gary Lipovetsky say they are looking at how Tony Robbins, an inspirational speaker and life coach, has scaled his multimillion-dollar educational platform.

“There are people who are Tony Robbins fans who travel together, but they have no affiliation with Tony Robbins,” Ostro said. “They somehow do find each other.”

Creator Method isn’t the only content creation programme available, but it’s one of the few that doesn’t advertise itself promising large follower gains. Natalie Ellis, founder of Boss Babe, started her influencer school in October 2021, promoting proven methods for quickly boosting audiences, and said that 3760 people have enrolled since then. She divides her 12-week course into “freshman,” “sophomore” and “junior” years, and gives participants a certificate at the end.

“The program is really designed to help them get clear on their brand and be able to grow an audience, and get that engine going,” Ellis said.

Some say there is a need for people with expertise to share their knowledge about influencing with others – and it’s not something that’s taught in many traditional academic institutions.

“I think there’s a real need out there for relevant and reliable instruction,” said Robert Kwortnik, an associate professor at Cornell’s SC Johnson College of Business.

But others aren’t so sure about the pitch that some instructors are making to aspiring influencers.

“They almost all really hammer the kind of ideology of entrepreneurship,” said Angele Christin, an associate professor at Stanford University’s Department of Communication. She studies influencers and took more than a dozen online content creation courses as part of her research.

Part of that ideology, she said, is emphasising to students that they have an opportunity “to refashion your life the way you want it to be and escape the grind of the 9-to-5 job”.

But it’s no surprise how appealing that notion can be, and plenty of people seem to think that learning from the Lipovetskys is worth the $3000 – and that their guidance produces results.

“I wouldn’t say that I have grown from a creative standpoint, but I feel like I’m growing so much from a business standpoint,” said Mona Said, 28. Gary Lipovetsky suggested that Said mention “partnerships” in her Instagram bio to attract more brand deals. “A week later, two brands reached out to me,” she said.

Like any school, it may come down to how a student applies herself.

One attendee, Rosa Hoffman, 37, who creates skin-care content, compared the programme to therapy.

“They just tell you to do the work,” she said. “And if you don’t do it, you can’t expect to grow.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Chiara Dello Joio

Photographs by: Scott McIntyre

©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES

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