Mihlali Ndamase on people thinking being an influencer is easy

Mihlali Ndamase may have not planned to be an influencer when she opened her Instagram account and started her YouTube channel, but moghel blew up so fast that those who aspire to be like her may be duped into believing it is a piece of cake.

Mihlali shut down the assumption that being an influencer is easy. She said people who think a photo here and a photo there is all it took had a rude awakening waiting for them. 

"The one thing I can say is that it is not as easy as it looks. A lot of people see the final product and they're like 'OMG this is so easy! I'm just taking two Instagram pictures and you know I'm gonna get brand deals.' But there's actually a lot of work that happens behind the scenes and you need to put money in to get money out. You need to be consistent and, most importantly, be authentic," Mihlali said.

The influencer has more than one million followers on Instagram alone, and even though she aspired to such numbers from the get-go, initially it was a far-fetched dream for her.

"When I started my Instagram page, I didn't think it would happen for me but it's something I aspired to. I wanted to have a successful channel. So I spoke it into existence and put in the woke."

"It wasn't really part of my plan (to become an influencer). The only thing I knew was that I wanted to start a YouTube channel because I was very passionate about beauty, and there were some make-up bloggers I was watching from the States. I would watch their growth and I was inspired by that."

The influencer laughed with embarrassment when she spoke about how she has "taken a break" from school. Mihlali was studying strategic communication but paused her studies to capitalise on the popularity of her personal brand.

"So I was studying full-time for two years, so I was like let me switch to part-time. So halfway through my part-time studying - LOL, I probably went to classes twice or thrice last year, I barely went to school - I decided to stop wasting money and just take a break. But I will go back when I am ready."