I'M AN INFLUENCER

at last.

me in my garden clogs, by the meadow

Once upon a time when I was running a digital magazine, PRs started sending me things so that I’d do a write-up or mention them on Instagram, or something. But they quickly realised I’m a rubbish influencer and stopped sending things.

Or, I stopped giving out my address.

I never wanted to talk about products I’d been sent. I’m a writer. I wanted to write about my experience of life, motherhood, womanhood, the process of writing itself. Sometimes, I’d write about how I earned a living. But not about products.

So, my influencer career spanned a backpack I was sent, a carseat and maybe some food. I can’t really remember. And then I returned to writing articles as a journalist and editing my magazine and I started a business and wrote some books etc.

When a new neighbour moved in and referred to me as an influencer I was shocked. Firstly, who told him that? Secondly, I wasn’t an influencer. Thirdly, why wasn’t he referring to me as a writer, if he knew who I was?

In the intervening years, I’ve focused on my writing career and now I feel comfortable in it. I earn a living as a writer, I teach others about different ways to write, online, and I have a podcast now, too, about writing. And a new online course.

But, something has been happening over the past few weeks and I’ve realised: NOW, I’M ACTUALLY AN INFLUENCER and I’m not at all unhappy about it. Quite the opposite. Here’s what’s happened, and a bit about my new life as an influencer.

oh, the bloody meadow again

So, I wrote this essay about the bees on my meadow, and under it, there were several lovely comments about nature and pollination and bees and also, these two comments:

That's beautiful, Annie. I don't have outdoor space in my flat in London. But I'm thinking I could grow some mini window-box meadows! Thank you for the inspiration.

I am re-inspired to do a meadow planting (a plan I had back when we had a lawn as a replacement for same but long forgotten! Thank you for the reminder now we have 9 acres to fill!)

Writing about wild meadows, as an amateur gardener, was reminding others that they could do what I was doing, too. I was influencing. And it felt like the most exciting kind of influencing there is because if we all do this, maybe we’ll save the planet.

On Instagram, someone else said she liked my mini meadow and asked for a link to the seeds I lay, so here it is, in case you are also interested (they were from Amazon, sorry all. A proppa influencer would prob get an affiliate link going. I won’t, though).

So, I’m now a ninfluencer. Do you know about them? Probably not because I just coined that snappy term. A nature influencer. Sounds a bit like ninja too, though, which I like. Influencing wild meadow all over the globe. Well, three patches.

The problem - or not - is that I don’t actually want to be sent any products, still. I just want to get my own seed and make my meadow bigger and then obsessively stare at it and take photos and videos and share them online. So, am I not really an influencer?

Are influencers meant to accept #gifts from #PRs?

Or can we strip it back and simply make it about sharing what we know to be good, because we want to have a positive impact on the world?

Or, because we feel intuitively drawn to nature and playing a part in biodiversity. It becomes a special interest, which makes it almost impossible not to share. It’s your obsession. You’re fascinated. Just waiting for a window in which to show and tell.

The internet is the window.

Maybe we don’t set out to be ninfluencers, it just happens. And the reward is keeping the bees happy, and if we keep the bees happy, they keep us happy and if we are all happy, there will be less wars and less hate and so maybe this is actually activism.

I wonder if activism is initially accidental, too. You believe in something so strongly that you start spreading word about it and rallying people together and soon, it’s a movement. A bit like this meadow movement me and three others are part of, here.

Mactivism.

Sorry, I’ll stop.

is this poppy for real?

It’s interesting when you are assigned a role, like the influencer role I was assigned back in 2015, without choosing it. And you have to decide if you’re going to follow it through or reject it. Turn your back and stay on the path you chose (for me: writing).

I’m getting better at turning my back, as I get older. I don’t choose the path that others might be desperate to tread unless I, too, feel desperate to tread it. I listen less to ego and more to heart and soul. I make decisions based on energy and peace.

Which, actually, is how I came up with the latest iteration of The Creative Way courses I run.

This one is about growing an online career, from home, without getting bored or burning out. If you can stay stimulated and vitalised, while earning a living that stems from your creative outlet, I think you’re onto a winner. You hold onto your power, too.

My future, as an influencer

I will say that although I don’t want to be sent any products or have the pressure of someone else dictating my writing and photographs, online (content), I do sit staring at my meadow, thinking: how can I make this my job?

I want meadow to be my job.

Job? Mini patch of wild meadow in garden. Not cultivating it elsewhere, just sitting and staring at it. Taking photos every single day, which I do already, and writing about it. Showing my children, and anyone else who’ll come and look.

Would any brands like to sponsor me to do that?

Annie x

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Ps.

With temperature soaring, I’ve been doing some ‘global warming’ research and it’s not very fun but I did discover that the three main changes we need to make are to switch to renewable energy, use less energy (inc. cut down on meat) and increase biodiversity.

I think we know this already. But a reminder is always useful. As is looking at what we can do, rather than what we didn’t do in the past. We need to feel hopeful, if we want to make meaningful change, here. Grow your little patch of meadow, my loves.

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