The Question Every Influencer Asks in These Moments

“What do I say, and what happens if I say nothing?”

Kyle Hjelmeseth, CEO of G&B Digital Management, on what it really means to show up for your community when the world expects a response.

I used to think that if social media didn’t exist we might be comfortable in our ignorance about what is happening around our country, and beyond - around the globe. Now I don’t know. We live in a time, a moment, an era that is both unprecedented and also very confronting.

Now is an era where care is expected about everything everywhere, all at once, and this creates a pressure on each of us to not just have a feeling about it all, but a response. And that has been a heavy, heavy burden for many since before the murder of George Floyd in the spring of 2020. As crazy as it may sound, there was a point in time where I felt like the response in these moments was manageable. I worked with my team and we created a general framework on how to respond –the first of its kind, as far as I know– for social media Influencers. Fast forward almost six years later now we’re asking, what do you do when every day some part of the world is on fire and there is an expectation that, again, you speak on everything, everywhere, all at once?

One of the first things I can say about today versus yesterday - we, as in the Creator Economy / Influencer, are a lot more grown. The industry itself, and the ability to be a social media Influencer is barely more than a decade old, but we’ve learned a lot during this time and are certainly not living in the Wild West that I stepped into a decade ago. Being “grown” comes with experience, and comes with expectation. I think that there is a rightful expectation today that Influencers are not just sharing content, but actually building and leading communities. We can’t keep saying that we’re here for our communities and yet shrink away from the responsibility of listening to that community, responding to that community and again, leading that community. They may have come for the fashion, but they stayed for you. They stayed for you.

You are not just fashion. You are not just beauty tips. You are not a pretty plated meal, or even just a viral trend. I want you to be honest with yourself, and that starts with no longer minimizing your value to your community. Especially just to make yourself more comfortable. This looks like saying something along the lines of, “I make fashion and beauty content…my audience doesn’t want to hear what I think about xyz.” That paradigm no longer exists.

Which leads me to my next point – you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. With each flick of our thumbs our feed can flip between personal photo dumps, wholesome cat videos, comedy and entertaining mini-series, to horrific… even traumatic world events. These can be playing out a world away, and yet feel like it’s your neighborhood. Feel too close to home. And so we are confronted by a wave of emotions and feelings that range from good to bad, to worse, and we have to pick which feeling we want to sit in. This is probably more confronting than you imagined your life to be, no matter what the age.

You are confronted by the emotion, you are confronted by the moment, and as an Influencer you are confronted by the question – what do I say? What do I post? How am I supposed to show up about this? What will they say when I post? What if I post the wrong thing? What if I post nothing? What will they (the seen and the unseen community) do? How will they judge me at this moment?

I can tell you from first hand experience as a husband, father, CEO and community leader that none of it feels good or exactly right. Damned if I do. Damned if I don’t.

But I show up.

Where I want to land this plane is simply this – we need to move away from judging others for how they show up in these times and focus more on having the courage to show up. I firmly believe that we are all doing the best we can – that you are doing the best you can.

I asked a dear friend and long-time collaborator in the world of influencer marketing, Brand Strategist, Martha Garcia, to weigh in, and she did so perfectly:

“In moments like these, it’s natural to feel confusion, frustration, or even despair. These situations are designed to wear you down and leave you feeling isolated or frozen. But it’s important to remember that we are nothing without each other. It’s not the time to sit in your feelings, it’s a time to reaffirm your values, and lead with them. Stand in your integrity. DO SOMETHING. Community is our greatest resource: when you choose your message in this moment, honor it, knowing that next time you may show up differently. The system wants you to feel alone, but together, we can support one another and resist isolation.”

Influencers, we are speaking to you. I want to impress upon you that it’s imperative that you reaffirm your values in these moments, and lead with that. The expectations on you are heavy, because you are a leader in your community – but it does make it a bit easier when you accept the opportunity you’ve been given and act accordingly.

There is some great quote out there about showing up imperfectly over not showing up at all. After all, why are you really here?

Written By: Kyle Hjelmeseth