College is full of new experiences and challenges, so some students are forced to find ways of balancing the pressure of academic success, while also keeping up with a social presence.
LSU freshman Danica Flores, 18, is a business marketing major from Pennsylvania who has adapted to her new life at LSU by turning to social media. Flores has completely transformed her social life at college from day to day and on social media. As an influencer with over 6,000 followers and more than three million likes on TikTok, Flores is navigating the world of creating viral content, while managing her academics.
“Growing up, I would watch influencers, and I always knew I wanted to be one,” she said. “With my major, you have to get out there and network and learn how to promote stuff, so I wanted to tie in marketing with my social media, because I’m very friendly and outgoing.”
For Flores, social media is more than just a hobby. It has become a side hustle that allows her to express her creative side, while making new connections and some extra money.
“A lot of people think it’s easy because you’re just posting videos, but it’s more than that,” Flores began. “It’s a little hard, especially balancing school and influencing, because you have to think of what people would want to watch. You have two seconds to catch someone’s attention, or they’ll scroll.”
Despite her current love for content creation, Flores doesn’t want to be known on campus as a TikToker. Her main goal is to be perceived as a role model. Flores is a self proclaimed businesswoman, who has a dream to start her own real estate firm after college.
Another student navigating the balance between content and classes at LSU is freshman Juliette Amara, a communication disorders major from California whose dream is to become a speech pathologist.
Amara began posting on social media for fun after seeing some of her friends posting. Amara has a heavy school workload and said she is always in Himes Hall or the math lab, so she finds that time management is crucial. Her biggest priority is to post frequently, but sometimes it’s just not realistic for her busy schedule.
She aims to post on TikTok every two days, and content is always on her mind. To reach her social media goals, some planning must go into the content creation; however, many of the videos create themselves with Amara and her friends recording before they go out or when she gets a new product in the mail.
“I used to have a set schedule before I came to college, but since I got here, I’ve been more focused on school than anything,” Amara said. “ I really try to plan it out. Other than that, it’s usually just spontaneous.”
Amara’s social media journey has grown throughout her freshman year at LSU with over 4,000 followers on TikTok and 400 thousand likes. She said TikTok has allowed her to feel more connected with people on campus.
“I meet a lot of nice people and also people from LSU that find my TikTok, and they reach out to me and hang out in person, so I would say I like the interaction,” she said.
Even though she receives lots of positivity, one downside that comes along with being on social media are the hate comments. Amara deals with them by simply blocking the negativity and focusing on the positive.
“Whenever I see something I don’t like, I just scroll,” she explained. “So it’s interesting to me that people just go out of their way to comment crazy stuff, but it doesn’t affect me. It’s just weird,” Amara said.
Flores also mentioned that while sometimes the hate can be bothersome, they still help in a positive way by boosting her videos.
“I receive hate comments all the time, and it’s easier said than done, but I just ignore them, because at the end of the day, they’re the ones that are commenting and watching my TikToks, which is the reason why I blow up and get paid for what I do,” Flores said.
Both Amara and Flores are uncovering their own niche on TikTok, hoping to achieve various career paths beyond the platform. Amara’s advice for students who also want to give content creation a try, is to just start and to not be afraid of hitting that block button.
“Don’t give up, because you have to have faith in what you want to do, or else it’s not going to work and your end result is not going to be what you want it to be,” Flores said.
Amara and Flores are just two of many students on campus who represent a new generation of student influencers, using their platforms to spark creativity and create a stepping stone towards future careers.
