The Challenge of Vulnerability as an Influencer

The book is officially launched and for those of you who have your copy of Winfluence – Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand, you’ve probably started in on the book and know the name Tiffany Mitchell now. Her story of the now infamous motorcycle accident opens the book. 

To catch those of you up who haven’t yet read her story in the book, Tiffany is Tifforelie online. Her Instagram account has over 200,000 followers. She’s a lifestyle influencer, photographer and artist who has passionate, loyal fans, primarily because she is so very vulnerable with the ups and downs of her life. 

The motorcycle accident I write more about in the book was controversial because the photographs she chose to share in its aftermath were very good. Too good. Professional. And in one, there was a SmartWater bottle conspicuously placed. Social media, then the traditional media exploded with claims she staged it, it was all a sponsorship play and so on. 

It wasn’t staged. It also wasn’t sponsored. And the incident was one of several beacons in the influencer space in 2019 the mainstream media grabbed hold of to declare influencer marketing dead. And Tiffany’s opportunities dried up for a year afterward. 

But, Tiffany is still Tifforelie and still providing outstanding content, engaging her audience and she got back to occasionally partnering with brands and sharing partner content as well. To celebrate the launch of the book, Tiffany agreed to come on the show, rehash a little of the story one more time, but also dive into how she approaches brand partnerships, creating content and the risks of being out there. 

She’s very candid in her advice for aspiring influencers and offers up interesting insights into the content creator’s mindset that brands and agency types alike will learn from.

This episode of Winfluence – The Influence Marketing Podcast is presented by Winfluence – Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand, my new book from Entrepreneur Press. You can find it in bookstores everywhere.

Winfluence, the book, is not just a strategic blueprint to help you employ smart influence marketing strategies for your business or clients, but it explains why our common perception of influencer marketing is all wrong. I take you through how to re-think and reframe the concepts to turn influencer marketing into influence marketing … broaden the perspective and open new avenues of leveraging influential people — online and offline — to grow your business.

Winfluence (the podcast) listeners get a special 20% off code. Go to http://jasonfalls.co/buywinfluence and on checkout, use the code FALLS20 for 20% off the retail price.

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Winfluence Transcript – Tiffany Forest – @Tifforelie

Jason Falls
Hello again friends thanks for listening to Winfluence – The Influence Marketing Podcast. The book is officially launched and for those of you who have your copy of Winfluence – Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand, you’ve probably started in on the book and know the name Tiffany Mitchell now. Her story of the now infamous motorcycle accident opens the book. Since then, Tiffany has gotten married. Her name is now Tiffany Forest. She also has a bouncing baby boy and has moved back to Lexington, Kentucky, after years in Nashville where the accident happened. Needless to say her life has turned around quite a bit since that fateful day.

Jason Falls
To catch those of you up who haven’t yet read her story in the book Tiffany is @Tifforelie online. her Instagram account has almost 200,000 followers. She’s a lifestyle influencer photographer and artist who has passionate loyal fans primarily because she’s so very vulnerable with the ups and downs of her life. The motorcycle accident I write more about in the book was controversial because the photographs she chose to share in its aftermath were very good. Too good. Professional. And in one there was a Smartwater bottle conspicuously placed. Social media then the traditional media exploded with claims she staged it. It was all a sponsorship play and so on. Well it wasn’t staged. It also wasn’t sponsored. She was coming back from a photo shoot and after knowing Tiffany was okay, her professional photographer friend Lindsay snapped the pictures. The water bottle was coincidental and placed by her head by a good Samaritan who was there to help. It’s something all of us would have done in the same circumstance. The incident was covered in Cosmopolitan, BuzzFeed, Harper’s Bazaar, and London’s the Evening Standard, among others. It was one of several beacons in the influencer space in 2019 the mainstream media grabbed hold of to declare influencer marketing dead.

Jason Falls
Obviously it isn’t. But the blow up turned Tiffany into a leper for brands. Her opportunities dried up for a year afterwards. But Tiffany is still @Tifforelie and still providing outstanding content, engaging her audience and she got back to occasionally partnering with brands and sharing partner content as well. To celebrate the launch of the book, Tiffany agreed to come on the show rehash a little of the story one more time, but also dive into how she approaches brand partnerships, creating content and the risks of being out there. She’s very candid in her advice for aspiring influencers and offers up interesting insights into the content creators mindset that brands and agency types alike will learn from. She’s a gem as an influencer and has been more than gracious in allowing me to tell her story, both in the book and here. Enjoy this profile in conversation everyone. Tiffany Mitchell Forrest is next on Winfluence.

Jason Falls
This is normally the point in the program where someone jumps in and says, “Support for today’s podcast …” Well support for today’s episode of Winfluence – The Influence Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Winfluence the book! Winfluence – Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand is available now from Entrepreneur Press. You can find it in bookstores everywhere, but I’ll have a special place to go online and get a discount in just a second so get ready to jot down a note. Winfluence the book is not just a strategic blueprint to help you employ smart influence marketing strategies for your business or clients. But it explains why our common perception of influencer marketing is all wrong. I take you through how to rethink and reframe the concepts to turn influencer marketing into influence marketing, broaden the perspective and open new avenues of leveraging influential people online and offline to grow your business. Here’s the special URL and discount code just for you the listeners of this podcast go to jasonfalls.co/buywinfluence. That’s jasonfalls.co/buywinfluence. That takes you to the book on the Entrepreneur Press bookstore, buy the book and use the code FALLS20 – all caps – F-A-L-L-S-2-0 and get 20% off the retail price. The address again is jasonfalls.co/buywinfluence. Leave a review on Amazon after you read it because select reviews will be read here on the show. Winfluence – Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand is available now. Go to jasonfalls.co/buywinfluence. and use the code FALLS20 today.

Jason Falls
Tiffany, I cannot not start with the big question. How’s life as a new mom?

Tiffany Forest
Oh my God, I’ve never slept less and cried more, for fewer reasons in all of my life.

Jason Falls
Yeah, that’s I think that’s a common thread. I think the moms out there identify with that. Yeah 2020 was a bit for a lot of people but you had all things considered a pretty incredible year new baby new husband, new city, or at least getting adjusted to being back in Kentucky has has your content now turned into the How to kick ass despite the world falling apart around you show.

Tiffany Forest
Um, I think my content has kind of turned into this is what I had enough energy to share today. And so it’s kind of gone to instead of once a day, it’s once every two weeks, once every month. I really miss creating more intentionally, but my content is definitely gone more because it for me, it’s always been share what’s happening. And when I had all the time and all the sleep, I could take pictures, edit them, write, rewrite, edit my own stuff, post it, but now it’s just kind of like, Oh my gosh, I’m going through something really hard right now I need to share that. It’s always been very healing for me to share. So yeah, it’s more sporadic, but still exactly what’s happening?

Jason Falls
Well, I think everyone who has children can understand where you’re coming from, for sure. All right, let’s start from the beginning. I always find a person’s path to being an influential voice online. Interesting. Where did this whole social media thing start for you? How did you get into this?

Tiffany Forest
So it was oh my god years and years ago, I mean, I could go back before the traditional common social media and say that I was I was a content creator on a virtual reality a virtual world called Second Life for years, I was making 3D content I had like a little clothing store and I was connecting with other people in gaming basically, and created the shop created a group that you could join if you wanted to shop my stuff. So I was kind of community managing my own virtual shop online for about eight years before I found out Instagram existed. And by that point, I had kind of started moving away from I had gotten married. My my ex husband, and I had started moving away from digital content creation Well, still digital, but more real life content like photography, focus. And a few of my second life friends told me about Instagram and said you should join should start sharing your photos on on Instagram. So that’s basically what I started my username differently is Tiffany or Elie, which was my second life name. Not many people know that. Wow. Yeah, it was kind of my virtual world alias. But, um, yeah, it was also a time in my real life that I was starting to go through my, my divorce. We had gotten got married really young, tried to get pregnant for a couple years, then I got pregnant had a miscarriage. And we had relocated from New York to Kentucky. And that was when our relationship really started to break down. So over that last two and a half years of our marriage, I was like dealing with the miscarriage dealing with the reality that oh my gosh, I don’t really know this person, we were falling apart. And I was really starting to need to connect with like, who I was, I was in my mid 20s. And creating has always been extremely healing for me. So I was determined I was kind of going through a depression because I never thought divorce was something that I would go through. I had a very kind of strict upbringing in that sense. So the fact that I was going through it was surreal to me made me feel like I was floundering. I was flailing I didn’t know what was wrong with me was I going to be okay, and I’m far away from where I grew up at this point in Kentucky. And so the timing of starting an Instagram and a blog was coinciding with this crisis, where I determined to not only create the things that I had been dreaming of, you know, like drawings and trying different styles something as basic as fashion, trying different styles, cooking baking things. I always dreamed of doing learning how to paint but I had to share them like that was the other half of the healing process of creating was sharing what you’ve made. And Instagram seemed like the perfect place to do it. I already was familiar with you know, I mean, people say like hate online, what does it feel like to be a attacked as somebody who shares personal things online. And for me, I kind of, I kind of got a thick skin before Instagram because of Second Life, like I would create virtual clothing behind my little alias. And I would have people trashing the virtual clothes that I made like, this is so ugly, this is the worst virtual skirt I’ve ever seen, you know, like, so I had already kind of endured that a little bit. So for me that that part of the fear was gone. So when I started sharing everything, it was purely like, I need to revive myself, I need to like, figure out who I am. And creating and sharing is how I’m going to do that. So that was really where it all started. For me. I was desperate to rediscover who I was. And in that process, I mean, maybe within a year of people had started to see what I was creating and followed. And because they could connect on that point, really.

Jason Falls
So before I dive into that a little bit more your your level of transparency is is unique, I think. But I want to ask you one other kind of follow up question to that. I don’t think you’re you’re young enough to have aspired to be this when you were growing up. So what did you go to school to be? What did you want to be? Because I have a feeling when you were a senior in high school, you didn’t want to be an Instagramer or an influencer, right?

Tiffany Forest
Well, no, but I another kind of strange thing about me is that like my wall, my family, my dad made video games, he started making video games back in the 80s. My mom worked for his gaming company, like they did a few games for Commodore 64, and then NES and stuff. So we grew up with this kind of outside the box idea of what we could do. And I remember being confronted with the more traditional, like, okay, you could be a doctor or a lawyer or teacher like these things that are like wonderful paths, and a lot of my friends, that’s where they were headed. But I was just like, but what if I wanted to make virtual skirt. But I remember my meeting with my guidance counselor, senior year, she was like, really alarmed. Because I hadn’t chosen a major, like, I had listed out a few of the colleges. But I didn’t know what I wanted to major. And I just, I remember sitting in her office, like, just completely, I didn’t know what to say, and like, I genuinely don’t know what I want to do. So I have to pick something. business. So I went to school for business for a semester, and then I switched. And then I switched, I probably went to four different schools in two years, and then just dropped out because I just what I wanted to do was like a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And fortunately, I was able to, like happen upon the Second Life thing. That was how I made a living for eight years. Like, you know, like, I started doing that, while I was in my last semester of the last college I tried to go to but, um, it I would definitely say that I happened upon this, you know, it definitely wasn’t the plan. I just, I just had this outside the box example my whole life, you know?

Jason Falls
Well, that’s that’s certainly healthy to have in the in the economy that we live in now. So there are a lot of people who pay lip service to the notion that the most you know, transparent and genuine people online have the strongest followings, maybe not the largest, but the strongest. And that infers to me that someone has true influence that they can persuade their audience to take action. You are one of a handful of online influencers I’ve encountered over the years that I almost thinks shares too much. I know you’re big on sharing and vulnerability with your audience, which is why they love you. But do you ever worry or feel like maybe you’re too out there for everybody? You’re too transparent.

Tiffany Forest
Um, I don’t worry about that simply because it’s, I mean, this might be selfish of me. But my goal has always been to share exactly what I personally feel I need to, you know, I’m not really doing it. For someone, you know what I mean? It’s like, sharing is a therapeutic healing life giving thing for me, if everybody sees it, if nobody sees it, I will get the same amount out of the act of it. So everything I share, I have chosen to share and that alone means that I won’t regret it. You know, if I ever take if I ever post something and then come to regret it and take it down, it will be because me Well, I mean, honestly, there have been times where I shared something and I’m like, ooh, I feel like that didn’t come off the way that I meant it. You know, something like that. I’ll remove but that’s because genuine Sometimes we live our lives when we look back and say, whoops, I shouldn’t have done that. But in terms of sharing too much in general, no, I don’t, I don’t really, I don’t really have that fear.

Jason Falls
Okay, let me take a sharp right turn here, you, you are wonderful at sharing your life with your audience, which is, again, why they love you so much. And I think it’s an indicator that you have really true influence over them in a lot of ways. But in order to make this whole online influencer content creator thing work as a career, you have to insert brands into that sharing or products or services in some form or fashion. Now, that’s a big way, if not the main way, you probably earn a living, give influencers and brand folks out there listening, some insight into your approach to doing that without violating the trust your audience has in you to be so real. And so genuine. I think that’s, there’s kind of a conflict there for me. And I’d love to hear your take on how that sort of commercial aspect of what you do make sense in the style that you deliver it in.

Tiffany Forest
So this, honestly, I will not work with a brand that I would not tell my sister about. Like, that was my thing from the beginning, when brands first started reaching out. Me I have two sisters, two younger sisters, and we living far apart for many years would stay in contact via text or Facebook, and just always sharing things with each other. Oh my gosh, have you seen this? Have you tried that, you know, like products, cooking things, you know, this all different kinds of stuff. So I was already in the habit of sharing things I was excited about. When I started doing Instagram, it was lifestyle, you know, I didn’t pick one very specific thing. It could be clothes, it could be travel, it could be this or that. And I genuinely do get excited to share things. So I thought well, okay, my filter for anybody that I work with is going to be if I wouldn’t tell my little sister to spend money on this, I’m not going to work with this company. And it’s worked out for me, I think just because I’m because of that lifestyle context of my content. It there’s, there’s not that many things that fall outside of the category of what I would consider I also have to try it and genuinely enjoy it. Before I’ll post about it, you know,

Jason Falls
It’s a very good approach now any any tips or lessons that you’ve learned over the years that you would share with folks for especially aspiring influencers or content creators out there? on maybe how to you know, how to deal with brands, how to build your presence, your community, what are what are some what are some tips, early lessons on this whole world,

Tiffany Forest
I would honestly say you really have to be yourself. But that means you’re taking a huge risk putting all your eggs in that basket, and you probably want to have a, like a backup job. You know what I mean? Like, like, it’s, it’s, it can work out really, really well. And then it can start to go away, you know, and then it can come but if you are just being true to yourself, that ebb and flow is absolutely going to happen and there’s going to be dry seasons and you’re going to need something you know, so make sure you have a backup, this can’t be your whole world unless you are willing to navigate it differently than I have. You know, like I’ve definitely had dry seasons and you know, have needed other things so I do I do commercial photography. Like ever all my all my work doesn’t show up on my feet, I get jobs strictly taking photos for companies and stuff like that. So that’s my backup. couldn’t really give advice to someone who wants to do it as their full time career, you know, because although I have done it full time, I would not recommend that even to myself, I would not recommend Hey, you know, this is what you should be doing full time no matter what.

Jason Falls
That’s that’s actually really good advice for the aspiring content creator influencers out there. Because Have you read a few things recently that say that, you know, one of the top three or four aspiring careers for high schoolers these days is an influencer.

Tiffany Forest
That scares me.

Jason Falls
It’s a little frightening,

Tiffany Forest
but can I share something real quick? Okay, there’s this there’s this girl that I follow on YouTube. I don’t know if I’m allowed to mention another person’s name on here. Okay, her well her. Her channel is called Ready to Glare and she’s a kind of kind of a drama commentator. Basically about YouTube drama and she said something she’s like, I’m gonna post another video today about an influencer that went off the rails and did something ridiculous. And then she’s like caveat, when I say influencer, I’m not talking about content creators. If I respect you, if I think you have valuable things to add to the internet, I’m going to call you a content creator. If you are ridiculous and drama, this and that and just get Hot water all the time and never responding well to it, etc. Like, I’m gonna call you an influencer. So she made this differentiation that I thought was really interesting. content creators, you know, it’s like you’re producing something that’s valuable in the world in general, not just online. And I think that’s the safest way to pursue this as a career is to pursue a career as a content creator, not as an influencer, the word now means so many things to so many people. You know, it’s Yeah. I just wanted to …

Jason Falls
Well, and that’s that’s a very good point. And I would I would agree with her assessment of that I call the the people that she calls influencers because I think influencers can be a very positive thing. I call the people that she calls influencer, the duck lips peace sign crowd, because those are the people who are really producing something of substance for the world. It’s just look at me and how cool I am. And that’s there’ not a lot of depth to that. You’re right. content creators are. They’re artists, they’re, they’re writers, you know, they’re they’re people who not only create interesting things to look at and engage with, but also, they’re really good at cultivating that, you know, the the relationship with their audiences, they’re there, in the comments, having questions and sharing their lives to a certain degree. And so that’s a different ballgame. I think so. Yeah, that’s pretty good. Okay, let’s, let’s talk very briefly about the infamous accident. That is a good portion of the introduction to my new book. And I can’t thank you enough for bearing all from me on that, as I know, that was probably a painful, if not frustrating thing to have to keep talking about long after it was over. And I don’t want to recount the story per se here because I think people can get the full lowdown from the book. But you know, just a real quick synopsis, a combination of your friend Lindsey wins professional grade photographs of the aftermath of a motorcycle accident, and seemingly conspicuously placed Smart Water bottle that led everyone from BuzzFeed to Cosmo to the Evening Standard to and I’ll use air quotes here report that the accident was a gimmick to promote Smartwater the story spirals out of control. Very little facts are fact checking. And, and that you can read more about that in the book. But once the fact lists internet gets hold of a non story that fascinates them, the truth gets lost in it all. We’re a couple years after the fact now what did you learn from that experience and hasn’t jaded you at all toward a world that has generally been very generous and welcoming for most of what you do.

Tiffany Forest
I don’t think that it has jaded me, but I think that I have learned from it, that kind of enhancing that perspective of this should not be the only thing that you do for the fact that like an entire a misunderstanding of an event like that, that I really intended to just be a another bit of sharing on the journey that I’ve been since what, seven years ago, when I started posting on Instagram, was taken out of context. And then like flung into the hills with all these details that portrayed me as that kind of a person that would do something that horrible. I mean, the hate that I was getting, and then the the I didn’t get work for a year, you know, like my career, doing photography on Instagram, having companies that wanted to work with mammy and it stopped dead in its tracks. That was really, really hard. It just kind of showed me how fragile the whole system is. And it’s it’s sad, you know, like the way that the media gets their clicks and makes their money and keeps their business running. It’s it’s not something that I I don’t agree with it, obviously, I don’t think but it’s like a steamroller. It’s just, you know, it’s a train, it’s a runaway train is just going like you’re not gonna stop that. So it just made me kind of reorganize my idea of what I should be doing. So spending most of my time on, you know, because up to that point, it had been fairly easy to just keep sharing things and being open and this and the the the answer to me was not okay, well, I better stop sharing now. I better stop being honest. The answer to me was don’t rely on this for as much of your career as much as of your livelihood as you have been. So it was math. I had just started to get some jobs again, and then COVID it and like the whole thing. So it was like oh goodness, I’m just gonna focus on I’m just gonna focus on ever Anything that’s good and wonderful. And then hence my engagement, Pregnancy move, marriage, baby. just decided to focus elsewhere.

Jason Falls
You had a little fate foreshadowing with this accident to say, Hey, you know, you should maybe rethink your priorities, and then COVID hit and you’re in pretty good shape as a result. Right?

Tiffany Forest
Right. And it’s like, I don’t want to say priorities because in general, I was still, you know, like life and like what was in front of me and sharing a vulnerable, like, that was always my priority, but it was just the, in terms of my work, you know, like the whole Oh, I’m a full time Instagram photographer, like, I’m a full time Instagram person, or whatever you want to call influencer. I had already been having doubts about that for like, maybe a year and a half leading up to that, because of the you know, just the way that the industry goes up and down and up and down, unless you adopt some other formula, which wasn’t going to work for me because I really do need to turn things down that don’t feel like a good fit. And I, I’m not that pert. Like, there’s some personalities that are just so good at going out and getting like, you know, sending out 15 emails a day, like reaching out to new companies and this and that, like, I’m not, that that’s not my personality, you know. So all together, it just wasn’t working for me that just kind of put the nail in the coffin, I guess. But it was really, it was really unfortunate. It made me really sensitive to, to look deeper at these stories, because I was just one of God knows how many people that are dragged through the mud by the media in one way or another. And before this happened to me, I had a much easier time just kind of looking at it rolling my eyes moving on, assuming it was true. But now it’s like, no, there’s a responsibility on me like as a reader, as a viewer, as somebody who digests media on a daily basis to do my homework and make sure that I’m believing things that are worthy of believing in you know?

Jason Falls
So I think there’s a really good lesson to be learned and message out there for everyone that, you know, there’s peaks and valleys, because you’ve, you’ve now kind of come back to a pretty significant peak in the last, you know, nine to 12 months, right?

Tiffany Forest
Oh, yeah. My personal life for sure. Globally, no. Yeah, personally, it’s been pretty magical.

Jason Falls
Well, and I don’t know that you’ve thought about this or have steered in this direction yet. I mean, I know, obviously, I’m connected with you a lot. I see your content. So you have if if not intentionally you certainly have, you’re now entering the world of parenting, you know, influential stuff. And that’s often a whole new universe that tapped into yet.

Tiffany Forest
Yeah, absolutely. That’s been kind of crazy. It’s, I would say, like the average. I don’t know, the average judgment just kind of ramps up. times 100 when there’s a baby around. And it’s funny because people like I’m always when, when people message when it’s like incoming, and people are, I always think, Alright, first of all this person, I’m going to try to take it as a sweet thing, because this person clearly has looked at something I’ve made and then chose to use their time to comment, like, send me a message. So I try to take it as like, they care, they care. So even if it comes off wrong, or offensive, or whatever, I’m just gonna, you know, try to keep filtering through that they care, they care. But a lot of times, it’s just like, it’s like, they don’t think that I know, left from right. It’s like really basic stuff that they’re trying to tell me. And I’m like, Oh, thank you, but he is in a diaper. That’s not my shoe that I’m putting on him on his butt. That’s a diaper. I know that that’s what’s right to do. But it’s Yeah, it’s been crazy. just dealing with that. It’s like a new kind of influx of but there’s so much support, you know, like it’s so overwhelmingly positive and wonderful and a relief, especially going through the sleepless nights and feeling like I am losing my mind. Like having a community of people that I can just communicate with at any time, like 24 hours a day I can communicate about what I’m going through and there are going to be people there that have been through it, that can encourage me that can uplift me and I can uplift them and it’s just it’s that thing that it always was for me, you know,

Jason Falls
Folks, she’s Tifforelie T-I-F-F-O-R-L-I-E. Go follow her on Instagram. She’s also on Facebook and also at TIFF really calm Tiffany again, I’m really honored that you saw through the frustration of having to revisit the incident of Tom’s to help me tell your story in the book I really appreciate our friendship and collaboration is a lot and i’m i’m happy as hell for you and Steve and Noah. I love seeing the pictures fly by in my stream and and selfishly I’m glad you’re back in Lexington, Kentucky, too. Hopefully we can get together in real life soon and, and enjoy each other in a more than virtual world. But thank you so much for joining and for joining me here today. I appreciate you.

Tiffany Forest
Thank you so much.

Transcribed by otter.ai

The Winfluence theme music is “One More Look” featuring Jacquire King and Stephan Sharp by The K Club found on Facebook Sound Collection.

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