Emily Anna is a fellow Falmouth university student studying Press and Editorial photography. We first discovered her YouTube channel by accident in the Christmas holidays of 2017/18. Since then we’ve watched every video and love seeing how her first years’ experience of uni has gone for her. Her video content includes Asda food hauls, everyday vlogs, and question & answer sessions about her course.
This week we decided to set ourselves the challenge of writing articles based around the topic of social media. With this in mind we thought interviewing one of the campuses celebrities would be a great start – and I’m not talking about the rugby team.
So last week we dropped Em an email asking her whether she’d mind being interviewed for an article for Her-campus. She loved the idea, and here is how it went:
HC:What do you use your channel for?
EA:I started YouTube 5 years ago because I had nothing else to do. I was bored one day and thought this sounded like a lot of fun. I started with beauty, style, and lifestyle videos that everyone was into at the time. Then when I moved to Falmouth I continued making content, as my art foundation videos from the previous year seemed to be very popular. As time has moved on, my YouTube channel has gone in a direction in the way of music and festival content as these are some of my true passions.
HC:Who/what was your inspiration for starting the YouTube channel?
EA:I watched a lot of the classic makeup vloggers such as Zoella and then I started watching more videos from the vlogger community. But now I wouldn’t say there is anyone in particular who inspires me to post. I watch a lot of film makers these days, and they probably influence the style I film and edit.
HC:Do you have any advice for anyone who wants to start up a YouTube channel?
EA:You just have to do it. Loads of people always ask me ‘were you bullied or what have the negative results been’. I’ve only ever had good things come of this channel. So my advice would just be ‘give it a go’. If you don’t start now, when are you going to? It’s scary at first when you have to sit and talk to a camera, but it’s now become my bestfriend, and I have no regrets about starting up the channel.
HC:One of the negatives about social media is negative comments, do you get any and if you do, how do you deal with them?
EA:When I was much younger, within the first few months of starting to upload on to YouTube, I had quite a few people talk about me behind my back at school. I really enjoyed what I was doing so I tried not to let those 15/16 year old get to me. Now I just get a lot of spam comments, but I think they’re really funny. I used to do a lot of style videos, and my most popular video from a couple of years ago was a summer lookbook. The video has 20,000 something views, and most of the comments are from creepy old men.
HC:Do you have any tips for growing your following?
EA:This is really hard, I don’t have a masses and masses of people following me, and my followers have grown gradually over time. As I’ve been pushing more festival content, my videos get more exposure due to the fact people will search up videos about Reading festival or Boardmasters. Social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter are good to help raise a following, but I’m not at all interested in how many people follow me. I run this channel because I enjoy making videos.
HC:What’s the best part about being a YouTuber?
EA:It’s a lot of fun. Having just finished my first year at uni, being able to look back and rewatch my vlogs from freshers week and the first term has been very entertaining. All the time I’ll find myself watching endless amounts of vlogs at a time with my flatmates. It’s so funny to see how we have changed over time. I find watching back my summer vlogs from being at festivals such great motivation to get my work done. The summer of 2017 were the happiest times of my life, and I just think to myself ‘I’ve only got 3 months left, until I can do the same again’ while trying to meet my deadlines.
HC:How do you balance social media and uni life?
EA:It’s really hard. Like really hard. At the moment I haven’t really been uploading that much content because uni work takes priority. I don’t intend to be so off the grid, it’s just I have so much going on that I can’t keep up with everything. I’ve always had an Instagram account which is associated with my Youtube, and last year I started a new one because I wanted to post more of my photography – because that is what I actually do. It’s really hard to merge both my Youtube content and my photography content sometimes. I make it work, but I also have a job and a social life, and then I have my uni work, youtube and all the social media that goes with it. Because I now have a following on Youtube it’s a great place to put things as I am constantly meeting new people for projects, being able to upload content for Youtube is another way I can help promote them. So it’s worked really well.
HC:Do you have any goals in what direction you want to take your social media in?
EA:Not really. In terms of my Youtube I have never set myself any goals in which I want to hit. I don’t check the subcount that often. Compared to where my channel was 5 years ago, the number of views and subscribers have been increasing rapidly. It’s really strange. I don’t have any goals as such no, I don’t ever imagine stopping. With my course we learn a lot about marketing so having this platform already set up and in a good place, this is only going to be an asset for me.
HC:Has your social media following helped you achieve anything you wouldn’t necessarily would have been able to have done if it wasn’t for the fact you had started your Youtube channel?
EA:I have had quite a few cool opportunities come up due to the fact that I have a Youtube channel. But the best thing has defiantly been the interesting people I have had the opportunity to meet. Particularly those from home. Those who I wouldn’t have met if it wasn’t for this platform. There’s this girl who I have been speaking to online for 4 years, we’ve never met, but we plan on meeting at a festival this year. We’re very close, she’s always there for me. Its people like her which makes me very happy that I started this channel. I hopefully do have a few more opportunities lined up for the future, but that’s all very hush, hush at the moment.
From all of us here at hercampus, we’d like to say huge thank you to Emily for taking time out of your busy schedule to come and meet with us. We wish you all the best with the next 2 years of uni, and we hope to see you soon.