Get fresh tips on how to run your career with direct, data-backed tips from the best-performing creators! Our top influencer this week is makeup guru Avery Honeycutt.
Avery has 100k followers on Instagram and 184k followers on TikTok. We analyzed her profile to show you the strategy behind smaller yet successful accounts. Read on to learn how Avery locked up a long-term deal with makeup giant ColourPop.
Let’s jump right in!
Key Figures 🔑
100k followers on Instagram
184k followers on TikTok
375 average monthly Post Frequency on Instagram
7% Engagement Rate on Instagram
13% Engagement Rate on TikTok
Skyrocketing Posting Activity
On Instagram, Avery averages 375 (yes, 375) posts and Stories per month, boasting a 7% engagement rate. She has a 13.4% engagement rate on TikTok, where she averages 47 monthly posts, sometimes posting up to 71 times in a month and five times in a single day.
These are incredibly high volumes of content. Avery most likely spends her days hustling and being active on her platforms. By now she must be best friends with the algorithms, and the numbers show how well her strategy has paid off. She’s built a powerful, constant exposure engine on TikTok, and seen consistent growth among her follower community. In 12 months, Avery gained 30k followers on TikTok, doing so in an even, steady fashion.
Top Five TikTok Posts
Let’s have a look at Avery’s most successful TikTok posts ranked by engagement rate (ER):
- This unpaid ColorPop shout-out went viral with a 252.8% ER
- Her Target and TjMaxx haul gets second place with a 67.4% ER
- This KVD foundation test wear comes in third with a 40.3%
- Her quick video on an Amazon find is fourth with a 35.7% ER
- Yet another Target haul comes in fifth with a 30.4% ER
Top Five Instagram Posts
These are Avery’s most successful Instagram posts in the past 12 months.
- This eyebrow tutorial using ColorPop’s pencil wins first place with a 33.70% ER
- This collaboration with ColorPop comes second with a 32.7% ER
- Her quick before/after reel takes third place with a 29.9% ER
- This amazing brow tutorial comes in fourth with a 29.6% ER
- Her hair IGTV is fifth with a 29.1% ER
What can we learn from Avery’s Top Fives?
On TikTok, Avery’s most viral videos in the past few months are all branded content, but none of them are sponsored. Meanwhile, her most successful Instagram post is unpaid and purely organic. This is a recurring key to success in our WABD profiles: showing authentic love to brands.
There are two main reasons why this is a highly rewarding strategy. First, because brands love organic content, and are drawn to creators who share from their hearts about products they love. Second, because followers love getting advice and tips on products that their favorite creators vouch for. This is the basis of influence, and after many years, it still proves effective.
Another recurring pattern in these top posts is the direct dialogue Avery has established with her followers. Read on to learn more about how she engages and grows her community.
Avery’s Strategy for Instagram Growth
As mentioned above, Avery’s post frequency on Instagram reaches unprecedented levels. Although she seems to be currently taking a break, back in May, she published up to 457 pieces of content, up from 382 in April. Most of these posts are Stories in which she speaks authentically to her audience: facing the camera, sharing details several times a day, as if confiding to a group of close friends. This tendency has no doubt built a strong, genuine bond between the creator and her audience.
Avery shows herself in a very realistic, human light. Sometimes posting 15-20 stories a day, for days in a row, she captures her thoughts and tips about self-worth, acne, mental health, outfits, makeup, life-hacks, opinions, and more. Constantly and actively talking to her community is one of the factors that most contributed to Avery’s growth. Day after day, she maintains a strong link with her followers. They get to see who she really is, giving them a sense of bonding and authenticity—two foundations of trust.
How does she convert this passion into deals with brands?
Avery's partnership with ColourPop
On Instagram, Avery averages around two thousand likes on each post. Compared to the hundreds of thousands likes on some powerhouse influencers’ posts, this might not seem that far-off. So how, as a mid-tier influencer, did Avery secure a long-term collaboration with beauty giant ColorPop? And most importantly, how does she maintain this brand relationship?
Avery’s long-term partnership with ColourPop began in 2021. Before she started getting paid, she tagged ColourPop quite regularly in quality posts. Part of Avery’s success in getting a deal with the brand was this regularity, which kept her top-of-mind for the brand. In 2021, Avery tagged ColourPop in 15 posts in five months prior to her first paid post with the brand. That’s perseverance.
Consistency, creativity, and quality are all long-term strategies that kept Avery on the brand’s radar. And it’s a strategy Avery keeps applying after striking a deal: outside of paid posts, she continues to create organic content for the brand, showing a real connection to ColourPop that goes beyond cash.
Another key to Avery’s success with ColourPop is her ability to generate value for the brand. She generated $330k EMV for ColourPop in 2021, tagging them in 77 posts. Twenty-eight of these were TikTok posts, while 49 were published on Instagram (including Stories). Out of Avery’s 49 ColourPop Instagram posts, only nine were sponsored by the brand. This shows that Avery creates a high volume of organic content about brands she loves.
As for the type of content Avery creates for the brand, we’ve listed some examples of both organic and paid posts. Mainly, you’ll see that what drives her work is talking about products she genuinely loves and how to use them. Avery has a unique take on makeup, and lets her creativity speak freely in her own interpretation of the products’ DNA and purpose.
Avery’s Top ColourPop Posts
Some of her sponsored IG posts with ColourPop:
- Boho palette reel, which also happens to be in her Top Five
- Malibu Barbie palette reel
- Pop of Neon palette reel
- A Britney makeup look using a full face of ColourPop
A few organic Instagram Colourpop posts:
- A makeup carousel of a colorful look
- Her take on retro Malibu Barbie
- This gorgeous eye look
- This fun magazine cover
A few TikTok Colourpop posts:
- Another outstanding look
- A full GRWM
- A look using ColourPop’s Citrus Fizz palette
Recap of Avery’s Keys to Success
- Dedication, consistency, and post quantity are truly what drives her growth.
- She is highly active and engaged with her community.
- She produces an incredible amount of branded content.
- Her view on makeup is unique, creative, fun, aesthetic, and accessible.
- She is spontaneous and fresh, while her personality can be seen in her light, effortless content.
- Avery brings the same freshness to all her posts, both sponsored and organic.
Final Thoughts: Why Is Avery a Top Creator?
‘Fastest-growing’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘most followers.’ Avery is a mid-tier influencer, yet she managed to secure a long-term partnership with ColourPop, one of the world’s top makeup brands. This partnership emerged partially due to her devotion to her brand, but also because of her personal touch and approach to content creation. By trusting that she had something new to offer without altering her authentic voice, Avery made a name for herself.
Most importantly, she shows brands plenty of love by tagging them, interacting with them, and regularly creating content for them. That’s the kind of influencer that brands want to invest in, and the kind of influencer poised for even more growth.
In Createur’s What Are The Best Doing Series, we let you learn from the best. We’ve selected profiles from our database and come up with fresh, exclusive insights on the top 10% fastest-growing creators.
Top performers/fastest-growing creators: Creators who experienced the largest growth in 2021 in terms of follower count increase, earned media value (EMV), engagement, and other success metrics. Not to be confused with the largest creators in terms of overall follower count
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