Love Island star says her job as a full-time Instagram influencer is 'hard work'

A former contestant on Love Island Australia has spoken out about the “stigma” of being a social media influencer, describing the job as “hard work”.

Cassidy McGill posted a video to her Instagram story on Friday outlining the pressures of her career.

“You know what, I kind of want to come on here and defend this stigma around having social media as a job,” she began.

“Everyone thinks that we get paid a s**tload to do f*** all, and it’s really easy – it’s not easy, this job basically never stops and there’s a lot of pressure.”

McGill has more than 259,000 followers on the platform and regularly posts about fashion and fitness. Her feed also features several sponsored posts with brands including Oral B, Olay and Groupon.

The 23-year-old explained how her career is markedly different to a conventional one.

“The way I look at it, you have your job, you have however many bosses, you maybe have a review once a month where they give you some feedback, some constructive criticism, they give you some praise and you move on from there.

“I have 260,000 bosses essentially, sometimes I even put your happiness and needs in front of what I would actually like to post because I know what you guys like as opposed to what I like. So it’s a hard job, it never stops but you know we do it anyway.”

McGill went on to say that she is “very grateful” for the various opportunities her job has offered her.

“I just want to give myself a pat on the back and my fellow influencers a pat on the back – it’s a damn hard job,” she concluded.

Social media influencers can now earn thousands of pounds from a single post.

Speaking to the BBC, Kat Richardson, creative director of influencer marketing agency WaR, explained that those with follower counts upwards of 10,000 can charge brands £750 to promote their products.

Meanwhile, for those with millions of followers, Richardson says the going rate can be roughly £10,000 per post.

Explaining why more brands are eschewing conventional marketing strategies and employing influencers instead, she said the latter offers “more depth”.

“When you’re looking at an advert for something, there’s no personal story behind that but when you follow an influencer then there’s already something you’ve decided about that person that you like,” she said.

“You’ve got an awareness of who they are and you’ve already bought into their lifestyle and when they post a product there’s already a link there for you.”